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!

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia
This is a thread written by an autistic woman who is worried about her future career. Not an autistic man. It's entirely reasonable for me to highlight that what worked in the past for autistic men, who face very different gendered expectations of behaviour and interests, will not work for autistic women now. This was what I was trying to highlight with my "rose-tinted" comment, but my text-mode masking of using a rhetorical question apparently failed.

Don’t blame the text mode, you were simply rude.

Again I’m out of this thread. I’m refusing to engage with posters who see things from their own one sided point of view.

And in case you hadn’t noticed, MN is a debate forum with lots of topics. It’s not a place where you should not feel able to speak freely, naturally being careful to be polite and considerate of others.

Yes that's the third time you've said you're leaving.

And this must be the third time you’ve replied to my post despite me telling you what I think of you. Don’t try to boss me around/bully me.

Completely agree. Humans are social animals without which, mental health deteriorates, which is precisely what is happening now.
I can’t understand how people don’t connect the dots.

Probably because what you've written is based on an incorrect premise, as remote working doesn't mean people are having less social time. Also, none of you who claim this ever supply any decent evidence that enforced time spent with people who happen to have the same employer is actually beneficial to humans.

TrashedSofa, Desmond Morris and Sir David Attenborough beg to differ with your incorrect assertion that humans are not social animals.
I wish you a peaceful life. 👋

It isn't inevitable at all. Skills often count for more than simple years clocked up. I work part-time in a senior role, lots of people do.

There are a lot of very outdated attitudes on this thread.

Humans are social animals but you don't need an office environment to get a social life.

There are plenty of other avenues to get a social life. If you don't waste 90 minutes a day commuting, you have time to see friends and do hobbies.

As I think I've probably posted about three times already on this thread, but people keep coming and posting without reading what went before.

none of you who claim this ever supply any decent evidence that enforced time spent with people who happen to have the same employer is actually beneficial to humans indeed!

Read my post again.

Humans are social animals. Working in person doesn't equate to more socialisation. It just means enforced face to face time with people who you haven't chosen, which is not the same thing at all.

This gaping big hole in your theory is why it's unconvincing.

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain

''Actually you’re right about people coping before and now who don’t have ADHD/autism or do have it. What did they do before the hybrid/wfh model came out? ''

The answer to that is we did not 'cope'. I am autistic and also have another health condition that causes chronic pain and for which I had about 5 different surgeries in the past 10 years.

Before WFH I had to work part-time only because I could not do a full week in an office.

I had 3 breakdowns in my life because of my mental health issues/autism and the last one led me to try to take my life.

Before WFH I hardly had any social life because a day at work in the office meant I would need to spend the following day recovering at home. I barely went out or did any kind of activity because my body and mind were so exhausted.

I also ended up losing one job because I was struggling with my health and the employer choose to bully me for it and question my competence rather than support me.

I have seen colleagues with disabilities/mental health issues being pushed out of jobs because the organisation could not be bothered to put some reasonable adjustments.

That's what having autism and other conditions/disability can mean for people who try to stay in the workplace: losing jobs, not being able to get jobs in the first place or seeing your health take a turn for the worse when there is no flexibility offered.

WHF allows me to better manage my conditions and to hold on to a job. It is not just a nice to have for people like me. It is a lifeline.

You seem to think autism and other conditions/disabilities are some kind of lifestyle choice or that they don't add limitations to what an individual can do. It is not the case.

I wasn't trying to be rude. I was trying to use a rhetorical question, you know, like neurotypical people do.

That I have failed and been called rude for it demonstrates that some autistic people don't mask well and cannot learn social skills enough to "pass" as NT.

@teddyandgypsy

''You are SO right. Fifty years ago we never head about ADHD and neuro-whatever. We just got on with it.''

This is so daft and frankly offensive.

50 years ago people with conditions like autism, bi-polar disorder and so on and people with disabilities in general ended up on the streets, locked in institutions being treated appalling or being infantilised and kept at home hidden from view...

Legislation to make discrimination against disabled people illegal also only came into action a couple of decades ago.

Inform yourself and you might come across as less ignorant and judgemental next time...

It really depends on what you do. I have worked from home since 2015, so long before Covid. I would never go back to working anywhere other than from my home.

I do not think that autism and other conditions/disabilities are some kind of lifestyle choice or that they don’t add limitations to what an individual can do.

You have no idea of my background and that I’ve also suffered with mental health issues, but I’ve had to go to work rather than claim benefits. My DM was medically retired due to a health condition and having to have a knee replacement due to this condition. All I am saying is people who are ND before more awareness came about in companies of ND, they did “cope” as you’ve stated in your examples above or you didn’t cope. My own DB has chronic asthma and I also have asthma and an underactive thyroid that before it was medicated affected me badly, the asthma at least counts as a disability.

I am pleased that people with autism, disabilities are helped to stay in the workforce, gain jobs, make reasonable adjustments etc but as I’ve said before companies have said generally recently about wanting workers back in the office more or on a hybrid model and not fully wfh. In fact, even though this post has raised lots of comments and opinions I think it’s actually made NT more aware of the difficulties ND face and vice versa. Surely a healthy debate means that companies that don’t currently accommodate reasonable adjustments or don’t think about ND employees and even clients, if they see discussion like this or if someone here chooses to raise this with their own HR department then they will think about implementing these measures and look into neurodiversity and reasonable adjustments.

What doesn’t help everyone involved in this discussion is when you and other posters personally attack and take personally any criticism if a NT person expresses interest/concern eg here of a ND person. Of course I wouldn’t voice my concerns where I work or even generally but as this is a discussion forum and this post has been started by a ND person then others have the right to comment. I do sincerely apologise if I’ve offended some posters here with my language and posts, this was not my intention and I certainly didn’t intend to do this.

I would say that over Covid 19 when my friends and relatives all worked fully from home, though we socialised together (partly due to covid restrictions when we could, when it was safe to do so), we did actually recognise and say to each other that fully WFH was making us into hermits and comfortable with our own lives and less wanting to socialise externally. A couple of us were actually pleased to get back to the normality of hybrid working and we found that after the initial apprehension around returning to the office on a hybrid model, we actually enjoyed the social interaction of being in an office and even dare I say it, commuting, but also being allowed to WFH. I do think some people if they choose not to socialise then it can possibly have some sort of impact on their mental health.

Completely agree with you. I don't have any issues perse that prevent me from going to the office but the hell if I want to go back. I totally agree that the office shouldn't be your social space, it's where you have to go to pay your bills, they are your colleagues not your friends, and in most circumstances you wouldn't voluntarily spend time with them given the option. At the same time I also completely disagree with the idea that we all need social interaction and are social creatures. Some of us don't want to be around other people and are far more content without that face to face interaction. On top of that, when I was commuting I was waking up at 5, getting home at 8, eating shit food and feeling like crap 5 days a week. Now that I'm fully remote I get 9+ hours of sleep, I wake up at 8, I shut my laptop at 5, I workout during my lunch break and I eat healthy, home cooked meals every day. Now please tell me why it was so much better for me when I was going to the office? I will never step foot in another office again and I couldn't be happier about that.

Oh get a bit of humanity will you. Does it really matter if there is the odd bark or very occasional doorbell when someone is on the phone or meeting? Most of us are human enough to understand occasionally these things happen and the benefits of wfh or hybrid for people’s quality of life and mental health are worth it. We tolerate it because overall it leads to a better society.

Yes, it matters to me. It mattered to my brother. I'm confident we are not alone in this.

A lot of people have to prepare themselves to have telephone conversations, particularly difficult ones.

Screaming kids in the background, being put on hold (at my expense) and the employee losing the train of the conversation is an entirely unacceptable/unprofessional response from a service provider.

I have to say I really hate background noise and obvious distractions like that on customer calls and it completely puts me off a business or service. I don't care if they're doing it from home but they need to do it professionally.

My office is next door to a fire station. The sirens are frequent and deafening. It distracts me but don't think my clients care too much considering that without our service, they'd be in real difficulties.

As I said before it depends on the type of conversation and whether an interruption would be OK if it was in a different environment. One bark or ignored doorbell ring is unlikely to annoy anyone. It's when its a prolonged issue or the person has to go and deal with the distraction that makes it an issue.
If someone is ringing their bank because they are behind on mortgage payments and they're crying on the phone that they are about to lose their house, if there is one bark in the background in pretty sure no one will notice. If the doorbell rings and nothing is said the conversation can carry on. But if you're in the middle of explaining your hunsbands terminal illness and the person on the other end says oh sorry that's just someone at the door give me a minute and they bugger off it's very unprofessional and rude to the person who might be very distressed. If it wouldn't be OK for a doctor in a surgery half way through a consultation where you're describing your severe depression to say oh excuse me a moment my phone is ringing, then it's not OK for it to happen at home.
If I'm just ringing EE to change my address and there's screaming kids, while it's annoying it's not the end of the world. (I would however wonder if they had heard me and put the correct address down though).
My point is there are some jobs that work fine from home and others that don't. The issue is there are some that don't work well with distractions etc and yet those people are at home.
Bog standard office jobs are fine at home if you're barely on the phone and the only meetings you have are with work. It doesn't affect me so I don't care where you're working. Jobs that work with customers should be much more careful about distractions. And even then as I've said before, if there are no distractions and noise I wouldn't even know the person is at home so it's irrelevant. I don't care. If for whatever reason it is obvious they are at home due to loads of noise and distractions then I don't think they job should be done at home.

Unavoidable noise vs avoidable noise are totally different and most people obviously understand that.

My employer is a ‘remote first’ employer, we’ve massively reduced office space, so there’s only desks for 10% of the workforce. For me, it’s meant I can have a ‘London job’ whilst living 200 miles away. Which as a mum with 2 young kids I could never have hoped for before.

I can do the school run, make time for nativities and ad hoc school events. On the flip side, I can work earlier/later/skip lunch and my employer is fully on board with that approach. I get my work done and my performance is great.

I won’t go back to working for an employer who has rigid office days, these employers will lose access to the best talent.