To be filled with panic about WFH culture becoming a thing of the past?

[themusingsofaninsomniac]

prefacing with please read the context before blanket responses 😊

I am stressing away as I tend to do lately on the same topic. I have WFH since the pandemic, with the odd day or so in the office I am lucky to have full flexibility with.

I have Autism. I also have ADHD. The combo together is quite the clusterfuck to navigate as a newly diagnosed female. Essentially the pandemic shone a light on so much and I'm so grateful that it enabled me to seek diagnosis, as much as it's an ongoing struggle.

From working remotely since the beginning I've never felt more stable and successful in my career. I was able to secure a promotion into a field I'd never have had the confidence to try in a non-remote setting in the first place, and I've been fortunate to earn a fair bit more as a result.

I feel completely at ease in my own environment and with the ability to tailor things to what works well for me. Having that commute time back has helped my wellbeing, as has having my lunch breaks in my own home. I am in a routine that I feel helps my mental health and the challenges neurodiversity brings me massively.

My current employer is great but they are the type of company that won't be around forever unfortunately. And from a lot of media and on here etc, it's becoming obvious that things are shifting to either back in the office or a hybrid with a good half your days expected in the office.

This absolutely fills me with dread. I feel like it would turn my world upside down. I'm sure people who don't relate to this will think I'm being dramatic but change and environments outside of your own control are so so hard especially once you've had several years of the opposite.

I guess I'm just wondering where this leaves me. I still have a few friends who WFH but not in my industry. I'm not sure if there would be more flexibility for me, but I also worry about how that will reflect towards my colleagues and I don't want to get anyone's back up. I guess I'm catastrophising that if I need to find another job I'll never be able to maintain what is working so well for me.

Not sure what I'm seeking here to be honest - reassurance maybe or just help to navigate this and whether it's best to be upfront with new employers from the start, or whether that might reduce my chances of being hired. I've been told I don't present as autistic, or typical ADHD but I guess the mix of both means it's a lot more blended. Either way I have generally got good feedback from interviews so it would likely not be known unless I was transparent.

I'd especially like to hear from someone in a similar boat too, if there is anyone? Probably not at twenty to one on a weekday though I imagine 😅

Thanks to anyone who has read this to the end as I know that got wordy!

Is this covered by disability discrimination I wonder?

Hilarious thread. How dare all those nasty employers want to get their staff out of their deckchairs and actually turn up to work. And ideal for those who don’t like commuting as most people love it. Dear god is it any surprise our economy is in the toilet?

Oh I’m sure wanting your employees to turn up at the place that pays their wages discriminates against someone. If not try the racism card or claim you are transitioning

Assuming from your posts that you managed to work in the office fine before Covid? You say you wfh prior, but a lot less. What’s changed that you feel now you couldn’t cope with working in the office?

I hope not….

Unbelievable. Just listen to yourself

You only have deckchairs in your house?

i think you misunderstand wfh. You do turn up to work. You do the work. You just don’t turn up to one specified location, to do your work.

i spend more time in the office than not. But I don’t have one specific office. I haven’t since 2019. I can do my job at any desk in any of the locations, including my home office. I don’t need one desk in one particular office to do my job. Many people don’t.

What happened is that an insane government paid people to stay home from work. Now they are addicted

I think I understand WFH only too well.

Your experience yes. But of course you don't get speak for 'most people'.

The professor, the Hr manager and your previously cited customer service employees all have different roles. Some will be suited to wfh and some not.

Hear hear. The voice of common sense

“The reason I mentioned a command economy is because we'd need a society with a substantial level of state control in order for what you mention to be a possibility. It's not like the tech sector are or can be made to go oh ok, shop workers and surgeons need to be in a physical workplace so we've got to do the same in order to be fair.”

I would respectfully suggest you study other societies with substantial level of state control (Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China …) maybe you’d like to live under autocratic rule but I don’t. I like my freedoms, all of them.

I absolutely feel for you here. I have also very recently been diagnosed with ADHD with many autistic traits although not been diagnosed with autism per se. I actually gave up my well-paid job five years ago due to the stress of trying to manage it along with bringing up my daughter as a single parent and dealing with my older daughter who is severely autistic and also has ADHD and the challenges of that which I find almost impossible to navigate. I absolutely can relate to your situation in work as I have spent my entire life masking and almost pretending to be something. I’m not in order to fit in. So the fact that you say that you do not demonstrate autistic or ADHD traits does not come as any surprise to me because I think women in particular become very adept at masking. It’s exhausting. It sends your anxiety through the roof and in terms of your job, being in control of your own environment and being able to set a strict routine to suit your own needs is absolutely paramount and a huge benefit to your performance and results. I think as a 53-year-old, in your situation now, I would probably be completely upfront with my employer, but it really does depend on your circumstances and how well you think they would understand your predicament and support you. I think it’s very difficult for people who do not suffer with these conditions to understand the debilitating effects they have on your life and how you navigate simple day-to-day tasks that most people find they don’t even have to think about. I find that even my own family doesn’t really understand how this affects me and so I spend my whole life analysing my behaviour and the impact it has on other people around me which is exhausting and stressful. I fail constantly! I wish I had some advice for you but other than being upfront and honest, I can’t really be of much more help. I wish you all the best x

In that case I'd respectfully suggest you don't advocate for things that could only be achieved in an autocratic society. There is a disconnect between what you want to see wrt remote working and the sort of society you say you want to live in.

You work in HR?

with those attitudes god help your employers

Op so much of your post resonated with me. I got my diagnosis as a result of the pandemic as i suddenly found myself feeling so, so much better, competent, happy, balanced, you name it. I had always wondered why i struggled with anxiety... now i know it isn't anxiety and I'm so relieved, but my work place isn't cut out for me. I haven't had to use my diagnosis yet but i have it up my sleeve for the basis for reasonable adjustments in the future.

ADHD here and possibly also ASD but undiagnosed on that part. I'm supposed to be in two days but get away with not at all
or one. Not at all when my foreign client want meetings at slightly antisocial times. One day a week when I have to.

i don't like the office. I find it difficult to concentrate, I don't like the commute, I don't get to see my kids so much. overall it doesn't work for me. I also feel tied to my job as I wouldn't find another job that allows so much work from home so I hope that my employer recognises that and keeps it up as that is what keeps me there tbh.

WFH or remote working is nothing new. I did it in 2002/2006/2007/2011 and regularly from 2015 to 2019. So all of this way before lockdowns etc.
The issue is that there are some managers who need to see bums on seats (regardless of whether any work is being done).
The last time I did hybrid work was 2015 to 2019. As most of the project team did not live near the project site, the working culture was Monday - home office, Tuesday to Thursday actually in the office and Friday - home office. We were delivering a project worth €39 million. It worked fine for us and for senior management.
The only time where WFH gets tricky is if people do not deliver or fail to meet deadlines.
Having said that, I think a lot of large organisations have realised how much money they can save by having the majority of their staff working at home. Sadly this is not reflected in increased salaries to compensate for increased energy costs.

I work for a global market research company. We just downsized our head office to a smaller one as the company sent out several surveys to see what proportion of staff wanted to stay WFH post pandemic. Most of us said we preferred WFH. Company has saved a lot of money in renting the smaller (and far more swanky!) building and staff morale is high. Win win.

I'm autistic too and WFH full time now with no pressure to be in our office. Most of my team are NT and stay at home too. Three or four go in once a week.

The government didn’t pay people to wfh.

They paid furlough to people who were at home and not working. If you were working from home, you were getting paid and the government weren’t paying them, their employer was.

Seems a lot of people have ADHD or some other diagnosis. Doesn't mean you can't go to work in an office.

Most people find going to work a chore, but has to be done.

Just the other day someone posted about WFH and managing to do two school drop offs and pick ups, taking kids swimming, baking a cake, lunch break, going to the shops....

Apparently it's fine "as long as the work is done".
By fitting all that in, including the planning, headspace etc you can't be doing your job effectively. Total piss take!!

Then people wonder why the economy is going South.

@Treesandsheepeverywhere Being ND makes working in open plan type offices hell. It affects productivity, as it is so hard to concentrate whilst colleagues yap total crap all day, everyday.

The Government are supposed to be championing WFH for the disabled - although seeing is believing.

That’s point. In a lot of cases it doesn’t ’have to be done’. Travelling to an office doesn’t always ‘have to be done’ to complete your work.

which is what life was like for a lot of use before the pandemic.

The economy is not in the toilet because some people do fuck all when working from home. Those people aren’t impacting the economy anymore than the people who do work in an office and barely do anything all day.

There seems to be an assumption on threads that if people in an office they must be efficient and work all day. I have been in offices for over 20 years and there’s always people who seem to manage to spend all day doing nothing. Where I work now, a few stay working late and love to tell people how much they work over. They barely do anything during the day, going off to talk to people, make medical calls for their husband, parents, adult children, take calls all day from adult children, spend hours moaning about how much they work, moaning about how much they do for everyone around them.

I know one director who is known for disappearing everyday for a 2 hour toilet break.

most people know colleagues who do very little on the office. That doesn’t reflect on everyone working in an office. It doesn’t mean that everyone working in offices slacks off. Just like because some people take the piss wfh doesn’t mean all or most do.

and known of them are the reason the economy is in the toilet.

And thinking time doesn’t have to be sat looking at a computer screen. In fact moving from it can help. The morning school run is thinking/ prep time for me for example, ditto a lunch walk. It helps my productivity rather than detracts from it.

Where I work now, a few stay working late and love to tell people how much they work over. They barely do anything during the day, going off to talk to people, make medical calls for their husband, parents, adult children, take calls all day from adult children, spend hours moaning about how much they work, moaning about how much they do for everyone around them.

Ah yes the ones who bang on constantly about how busy they are and the hours they work. Working constant overtime isn’t commitment it’s incompetence.