To never want to work in an office 5 days ever again

[halloweensweets]

Pre-covid I worked in an office 5 days a week and never considered it could be any different, even though the jobs I've worked could all be done from home. I would commute 90 minutes to sit in an office and have more distractions than I did at home.

I hated the temperature politics in offices most of all - I am a very cold person and usually my (male) colleagues would want air con or windows open even if it was 5c outside.

I don't mind going in occasionally to have face to face interaction with colleagues, but on these days I am much less productive as my role requires me to do everything online.

But the thought of ever doing 5 days in the office, sitting for 8-9 hours with colleagues again is horrendous. I would rather go back to working in retail or another customer facing job, at least then there is justification to be actually there and present plus you can move around rather than sit and freeze.

This^
And companies are realising this and having to succession plan for the future otherwise the new grads will go elsewhere.

There's a world of difference in training the next generation between hybrid 3 days a week in the office, and 2 days a month in office. Most new grads won't take a job with the latter.

I agree completely, the lights in the office always gave me migraines and I struggle with anemia so getting through long days in the office without accidentally nodding off in a meeting was always horrible (especially in warm rooms). I can't focus with other people chatting around me and as a single parent trying to make it home in time for nursery pick up was just a nightmare. I fully wfh now and my quality of life is much better. My career has come on leaps and bounds since wfh as I can be so.much more productive

YANBU! I know it's not for everyone or every role, but working from home is so much better suited to my personality. The improved flexibility alone makes it a game-changer, then there's the time and money saved and the much lower stress level of not being forced to interact with a random group of people every day, if I don't want to.

Already happening in teaching. They've only recruited about half the number of people needed to train to teach secondary for the last two years, and lack of working from home is thought to be a contributing factor Teachers are all graduates, and graduates will be looking at job opportunities that include ones that are WFH.

It's not just about being in your own space, the cost of getting into work every day, in both money and time, are not easily discounted when comparing jobs.

I totally get why younger people would want to work in the office..I'd have wanted that interaction too and I had more spare time so the commute wouldn't bother me.

I suppose as a knackered 48 yo with kids I've already found my people and what I'm more interested in is gaining time and making my life easier. WFH achieves that for me.

I'm having a break due to being made redundant but I never want to work with other people again . Working from home would suit me fine . Unfortunately I haven't got the skill set and I'm too old to have training invested in me as I'm near retirement.

DH WFH and I love it. He works hard, but it's lovely to have him about. I'm on holiday at the moment, so it's nice to be able to pop in with a cup of tea for him, or to have lunch together. During a normal week when I'm at work he can organise his time so he stops work to cook dinner for us all (he likes cooking) then often goes back to work, whereas pre-Covid he didn't get home until 8pm and we'd live off packet dinners. I like that there's always someone in the house to keep the dog company, and be around if teenagers are poorly so they don't have to be entirely alone and can shout for help from their pits if their leg drops off etc. His job is pretty stressful and I think it helps to be at home and comfortable. He can go out for a walk to clear his head. He's not as tired as he used to be. It's been a massive improvement.

I'm on a remote contract because I specifically sought out full time remote roles. Remote has improved our quality of life as a family in many ways, including the opportunity to move somewhere greener with better air quality for my asthmatic child.

It seems to me there are plenty of options out there for hybrid, office, and remote roles, so I don't understand the ire, angst, sadness and worry?

I WFH 3dpw and commute 2dpw. The balance works well for me. Ideally I'd do another day in the office but that's not an option at the moment.

I did miss the office aircon in the summer of 2022 when it was 38 degrees outside though!

Haven’t read all the replies, no doubt you’ll get people saying YABU, but IMO, YADNBU, I feel 100% the same!

I’ve always struggled in jobs except my current one (fully remote) and I’ve realised why now. I’m an introvert and just hate being around people all day. Also, it doesn’t help that sooo many of my previous office-based roles have been pretty quiet and I could’ve done all my work in 2-3 hours which meant I was always trying to make myself ‘look busy’ exhausting!

Funnily enough, my current remote role is hellish busy so I rarely get time to go to the toilet, I guess that in an office environment wouldn’t be too bad.

Anyway, YANBU!

Yanbu. The less I have to deal with air con the better. We are still hybrid working so I only have two cold days a week.

@PuppyMonkey

I can’t imagine how new young people cope trying to learn the job from home.

It's a soul destroying nightmare.

My son is two months into his first graduate job with one of the UK largest insurance firms. It's supposed to be hybrid with a "expected" 3 days in the office for all staff. Trouble is, there's barely anyone in. He's just there with a handful of other graduates and interns (1 year Uni students), and they're basically just trying to muddle through things themselves!

He and the other grads/interns tend to be in every day as they want to be around more experienced staff to actually learn things. But even when they're told that there's a "big" meeting so everyone will be in on a certain day, the experienced staff just come in late for the meeting and then go home again!

They have line managers (several steps up), and a few make a bit of effort occasionally to give them something to do (they constantly ask if anyone wants help with anything), but there's not actually anyone else around to ask how to do things, so they have to get back to the line manager to ask how to do something, which defeats the object of the line manager delegating the task in the first place and they start to get annoyed at being interrupted.

He knows it's early days, but all the grads and interns are saying the same that they're not actually learning to do anything.

I can see in a few years, there's really going to be a brain drain and shortage of qualified/experienced staff as there isn't going to be the required number of younger workers coming through.

WFH is fine for older/experienced/mature staff, but it leaves a massive vacuum behind of no one providing training/mentoring/support for younger staff.

Preach OP! Sod it- a mobile and a laptop means I am always contactable- the level of work now is insane, the expectations, the taking over of your life- no I’m taking 2 days wfh

The other issue @user1497207191 is that many of these young people don't have a nice "office" space to work in at home. Or a garden to sit in at lunchtime.
They're often working in their bedroom in a shared flat.

I prefer WFH. It's a contact centre so quieter for me at home and I can hear myself think! Also not freezing/boiling and no queuing for the kettle/canteen

That's terrible line management but I'm not surprised. A lot of grads (especially on rotational programs) while good for the business aren't valued by the individual teams because they're on rotational programs. Staff think 'why bother to train them when they'll be gone in several months'.
Interns even worse. So short term. Teams don't benefit. Although 1 year isn't an internship really it's a placement.

The best place for grads where I used to work teams had an opportunity to keep the grads even as they sent them out on secondments more motivation. But also, teams that ignored grads didn't get given any!

If you can find a job which will allow you to work in the way you want, then it is perfectly reasonable to chose to work that way. I don’t think anyone would say you are wrong for choosing a working model which works for you and your employer- why would they?

However, I do think all of this “I can do my job 100% as well from home as from the office” is not as true for many jobs as some people believe. I think some know this but prefer the money and time they save on commuting and/or prefer to avoid work politics/being around people all day. It is probably be true that you can do some/many parts of a lot of office-based job as well from home (or more efficiently, for some people) but I think there are definitely factors where that isn’t true- working with your team, training, things that require collaboration, training new starts, as examples. I think for many jobs, some time in the office is going to be beneficial for everyone. Of course, it won’t be the case for every job and some can exclusively wfh without any detrimental impact.

As someone who uses several services where there is more wfh, I can assure you it is a mixed bag- some are the same, some a little better and some significantly worse. I know some people who do prefer wfh who admit there are aspects of their work/service provision that suffer from wfh but they prefer working that way so would prefer to continue.

I think there is growing evidence that some regular time in the office is beneficial for most roles. I think in future there will be still be some full-time wfh roles, but I suspect there will be more hybrid working in the end.

So, no I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to wfh. I also don’t think it is unreasonable for some employers to be pulling back to a more hybrid model or for some to be moving back towards office work. All depends on circumstances.

I'm the opposite on the temperature front. Always worked with people who would try and put the heating up to 28 degrees! Which made me feel sick and tired. Then some stubborn person would sit under the air con in summer and declare it can't go on or they'll be cold. But they would refuse to move desks. In my last couple of years in the office I was stuck sitting opposite a throat clearer. She'd do it 100 times per day to the point I wanted to strangle her 😂And the commute! I live in London so it was packed on the tube like sardines.

I've been wfh for 5 years now and the most I would ever do in an office again is 2 days per week, absolute max. In hindsight I had no life when I was in the office 5 days per week. Out from 8am to 7pm. So by the time I got home and ate it wasn't long till bed. Weekends catching up on chores etc. Never again. I am so much happier and healthier now.

I spent seven years WFH in my bedroom in a shared house when I was younger and it was still a million times more comfortable than an office.

Also managed to get a good career off the ground in a new industry.

Please, this faux-concern for young people is always so grating on WFH threads. It's dependent on personality type, job role and industry. WFH suits many young people just fine.

Staff think 'why bother to train them when they'll be gone in several months'.
Interns even worse. So short term. Teams don't benefit

@PassTheNuggetsPlease
The training of the next generation may not benefit an individual team but it benefits the future of that sector. Surely staff in teams who take trainees should have their mentoring as part of their job description. It's called succession planning

In nursing, medicine, teaching, etc students are taken on placement and pre-registration year new grads all the time. It's part of the job. These people are short term and don't stay but they are the future of the workforce.
Imagine if every ward in a hospital wouldn't take students or pre-reg doctors????

Two of the interns at his place are living in hostels, so there's nowhere for them to WFH, hence why they go into the office every day!

I feel the same way. As soon as our office opened back up, I was there. I only have a 15 minute commute, though, so I never feel as though I'm wasting a chunk of time. I actually enjoy my commute, it's a nice transition between worlds. Public radio in the way in; podcasts on the way home. Lovely 😊

I will never work 5 days a week in an office again.

I took a small pay cut this year to work from home full time in a new role. It's worth every penny lost.

My mum would say the same about the best bit of working being her colleagues - she is aghast at my working from home so much. But we are very different and it suits me. Also I have an expensive commute to London - if I had a 10 minute walk/bike ride to an office in town, it would be different*.

Edited: *except for office chairs. Why are they so rubbish?

I generally liked my colleagues. I've stayed friends with a fair few of them. But the time we spent chatting at work was minimal. We were all busy and stressed. A couple of 5 minute chats each day is in no way an incentive for me to spend the whole day at the office.