To find it annoying when people moan about being in the office?

[justfliptheswitch]

Pre covid I was in an office 5 days a week. Since returning it’s been 2 days.

I think this is a great balance. But I’ve had two colleagues moan about childcare and that they shouldn’t have to come etc and for the last year they’ve got away with doing one day but now have to do the same as everyone else … like how did they cope before when it was 5 days?!

This! I've spent all morning listening to a colleague screeching and whooping. She only socialises through work. Guess who thinks our wfh should be cut?

Not a problem during covid was it when childcare wasn’t accessible but a phone internet and laptop still meant work could carry on as usual kids home or not… funny that!

a lot of employers weren't happy with that but had to lump it while there was no alternative. It was taken as read (because it's true) that you can't provide childcare and work 100%. And it often fell on those with no children at home to cover the slack. And that was tough on people who have come through the child-care years and thought they were over that, and on younger people with no children, often living in shared accommodation and less likely to have a space where they could work without interruption.

There was a lot of goodwill given, and a lot of piss-taking at the same time.

FWIW: where i work has always been hybrid and you can basically never come to the office or always work in the office or anything in between and can vary your days onsite to suit yourself. The only times there is a 3 line whip is for the annual company meeting.

I have negotiated 1 day in the office a month.

In 10 years I’ve had two 1% pay rises and also had 2 children. Add in a 3 hour daily commute, petrol costs, wraparound care costs and too right I fought for months to keep working from home.

I used to get home at 6.30 and see my boys for half an hour before they were in bed.

I’m an introvert it suits me and my family, and I’ll never work from an office again unless I’m desperate.

We have missed an amazing opportunity in my opinion to level up. To remove the desirability for London and commutable properties based on their proximity to London.

To allow the disabled and single parents to have a quality of life afforded to them by earning their worth in the marketplace, rather than what they can get. And the reason this opportunity has been missed it because of the likes of you.

As someone who works outside the home and travels to various sites 5 days a week, I loved lockdown when the roads were empty. It's still better than it was despite the schools having reopened.

What I would like is staggered hours for schools so drop offs/pick ups don't encroach on those of us who have to leave the home for work. Germany have the right idea with school from 8am to 2pm or thereabouts. It wouldn't impact parents as they are all working from home and juggling childcare while they work anyway according to MN!

It wouldn't impact parents as they are all working from home and juggling childcare while they work anyway according to MN!

don't be silly, we are talking about the wrap-around care. No one is pretending you can juggle childcare and work, but it's also true that a 10 year old can be left to their own device at home when you are in the same house for a few hours after school. A 4 year old, not so much.

We are obviously also talking about office job that are suitable for WFH, it's irrelevant for most jobs not compatible with it.

like how did they cope before when it was 5 days?!

This argument is tedious as well as irrelevant now. They, like, coped when it was, like, five days a week in the office because they had no, like, choice. WFH the majority of the time simply wasn’t an option for the majority pre-Covid. You can’t expect people to plan their 2023 lives around 2019 norms.

You remind me of these people who go on and on about what a shame it is that everyone is glued to their smartphones now, and how “We never had smartphones when I was growing up; we managed!” No you didn’t - you can’t manage without something you never had. You just lived life according to the options you did have.

I find the argument that people WFH full or nearly full time are just messing about the entire time and would become significantly more productive by going into the office bizarre. People have always browsed news sites, shopped online, checked personal email etc. when it’s been quiet or they thought no one was looking. That’s not a phenomenon that developed overnight in March 2020. I don’t even think it’s particularly unhealthy or damaging to productivity for someone to idly check the headlines.

I currently do one day a week in the office. Every now and then there’s talk of a push for us all to do three - but at the same time, they’re trying to sub-let chunks of our office space. The last push quietly died when we got a tenant for one of our floors… funny how the need for “face to face collaboration” diminished when we had less office space to justify paying for, wasn’t it?

I was offered a new job about 18 months ago. The company I was and am still with offered me more to stay. I did, but not just for the extra money - the fact that the other job wanted me in three days a week, with all the commuting time and costs involved, was a major entry on the Cons list. If my current employer does suddenly decide to force us to go in three days a week, the job will lose one of its major draws for me and I’ll be looking around again. It’s their choice to force people in, but we have choices too.

This argument is beyond tedious too. What’s your point? People who aren’t in office roles can’t work from home; therefore no one should want to do it, regardless of their job?

Options and working practices have always varied according to the nature of the job, or even its location - always. A nurse can’t work from home in the way an NHS Beds Manager can: no way around that. A manual worker is always going to need more physical energy for that job than an office worker does for theirs. Someone who drives to work can’t go for a pint after work like someone who catches the Tube can. If you work on an industrial estate off a B road, you can’t look around the shops at lunchtime as you might if working in the town centre. An accountant can’t take his shirt off on a hot day in the way a builder can.

Don't bother arguing that it’s not fair, because there just isn’t and never has been a level playing field in this sense.

I find the use of the word 'forced' in these discussions too emotive and unhelpful. Employers require certain things of us as part of our employment. Working a certain number of hours, completing certain tasks etc etc. Where we work is one of those things, whether we feel one way or another about it.

I dislike a whinger as much as the next person but I think you are ignoring the reality of the way work has changed post Covid.

• A lot of people made radical changes to their lives (such as moving home outside of commuting distance) during and after the pandemic. You can argue that’s unwise but a hell of a lot of people thought work had changed permanently
• The whole nature of work has changed. Physical meetings have been deprioritised and the video meeting is now the default.
• The pace of work during Covid expanded to fill almost all waking hours. I’m expected to be online from 6am and often have back to back calls from them until the end of the day (except lunch). On many days in the week my schedule literally doesn’t allow me to leave my desk to get on a train.

In addition to this I find being in an office phenomenally unproductive. I get three or four times as much work done without the endless gossip and chit-chat and general faffing of being in an office. It’s really hard to focus and get work done without being accused of being rude. In theory the social element is nice and it’s definitely good for mentoring etc but it comes at a huge cost to people actually doing work.

So yeah I think people have to crack on and make it work but I do feel some sympathy.

In that case let the people who want to go into the office go in.

But let the people who want to WFH do that. Unless of course there are performance issues.

"The pace of work during Covid expanded to fill almost all waking hours. I’m expected to be online from 6am and often have back to back calls from them until the end of the day (except lunch). On many days in the week my schedule literally doesn’t allow me to leave my desk to get on a train."

This is ridiculous. Are you working these extra hours for free? How many hours a week do you work. This is not what I'd call a work-life balance. I'm so glad I'm in a trade union and work for an organisation that treats is employees relatively decently.

Now I have to hot desk so inevitably turn up to a madly uncomfortable chair that I can’t seem to adjust to a vaguely comfortable point. I have a locker that’s miles away from where I have to sit so I just end up lugging loads of stuff to and from work every day, which is heavy- tea/coffee (my employer doesn’t provide it), mug, water bottle etc. I go to the office only to sit on video calls with colleagues who aren’t in the office.

don't you have rules in the UK about workspace set up - with rules about chairs, monitors etc etc?

Germany? meh. It is getting better but yes, i could drop my DCs to (junior) school at 7:30 on my way (drive) to work, and would generally but not always, be at my desk my 8:30. But school finished at 12 some days, 1 other days and all that rubbish.

Current employer? WF-wherever-you-like as long as you pay attention to GDPR and usual business privacy things. It always has been, and hybrid meetings work very very well because we've always been set up for it. I had a meeting today with 15 people, some in the office, the rest somewhere else. It's fine.

I am also working 2-4 hours a day extra for free which previously used to be spent commuting

My employer wins because of this

So now that they've asked us to always be in on one particular day a week I'm really pissed off as they're not changing the scheduled meetings - so they want me there for 8am with meetings scheduled to 5 (and I'm actually contracted for 6 hours)

I've just applied for another job 🤷‍♀️

Ask them if they're paying overtime or if you should take time off in lieu. Not on.

I fucking hated working from home. Hated it. I go to work most days and love it. People! A clear break between work and home! The chance of a sandwich made by someone else! No office chair ruining my carpet!

I would hate to have to work from home all the time again.

So now that they've asked us to always be in on one particular day a week I'm really pissed off as they're not changing the scheduled meetings - so they want me there for 8am with meetings scheduled to 5 (and I'm actually contracted for 6 hours)

Ask them which meeting to prioritize because they fall outside your contracted hours. Alternatively ask for an adjustment to your hours so you work less on other days (total still 30 hours)
And still look for another job

Yes! The only ones in my team wanting more office time and in-person meetings are the annoying or the lonely.

Sorry you're missing spending hours a day moaning in the kitchen about how busy you are at work Dave but stop trying to force the rest of us in. P.S if you didn't spend hours everyday complaining about being busy, you might get more work done and feel less busy.

YABU. People experienced WFH and found, unsurprisingly, it suited them better and gave them a much better work life balance. They'll have made changes to their routines and got used to the benefits of being at home, and now they don't want to give it up for a grim commute and an entire day trapped in a location with people they might not like.

Having said that - I enjoy going into the office two days a week. But five days would feel a strain now and would have a negative impact on my life for no benefit, either to me or the company. I work less in the office because there are people who like to chat (or moan) all the time. In our job we have to concentrate, and even if it wasn't for direct interruptions, the constant noise is a real distraction. We've had people just refuse to come back in for that reason.

I'm a solo parent.

I left my hybrid job full time job of ten years (that I liked) six months ago because I could no longer afford the increased train fare into the office on top of the increasing cost of living.

Moving to a fully remote job means I can just about keep my head above water financially. I'm so grateful.

I don't think people are unreasonable about complaining about working in the office. You have no idea what battles they are facing.

If I had stayed in my hybrid job, there is no way I could manage my increased mortgage at 6.24% (and increased leaseholder charges associated with my flat). The savings on the commute alone have covered 2/3rds of my increased mortgage cost!

The worst thing to emerge from covid is that going to work is seen as a major inconvenience.

Is that because most people don’t like their jobs? What a way to live we have created for people.

Maybe people have had enough. Good. Maybe WFH allows a better work/ life balance which is some compensation towards the fact that most people are spending the majority of their waking life doing something they don’t like.

You can’t possibly give work and kids your full attention at the same time - you’ll either be half-arsing your job or your parenting.

Yeah, because going into the office makes any difference whatsoever so that scenario.

I wfh and have good childcare. I think anyone who is working at home with their kids around is taking the piss
however, I don’t get why you’re bothered about how your colleagues feel OP. It is literally nothing to do with you

@thedevilinablackdress

This is ridiculous. Are you working these extra hours for free? How many hours a week do you work. This is not what I'd call a work-life balance. I'm so glad I'm in a trade union and work for an organisation that treats is employees relatively decently.

No I’m extremely well paid and part of that is because I’m expected to be always on. That’s the trade off. You don’t get to moan about work life balance in jobs like mine. And I am a lone parent so not in a position to be demanding fewer hours. It is what it is and it works for me well enough.