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!

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.

Which raises the question of whether you're willing to pay more in order to get what you want.

Why though? Should a doctor get paid more to actually do his job?
Say a bank manager got paid £100 a day to do their job.
Doctor got £200 a day as more skilled.
Why now do we need to pay the bank manager £150 a day for them to actually focus on you which is their job?
Should we then pay the doctor £250 a day so they are not distracted as well?
You can't say you need to pay people more purely so they actually listen to you. They both took the job knowing what it involved.

I work in dentistry. My prices are £60 for a scale and polish. I'm not going to say well if you want me to turn my phone off while treating you it's £80.

Because of supply and demand. We don't have enough workers as a society, and the low salaries usually paid for customer service roles don't buy sufficient staff who are willing and able to work in person any more.

Doctors aren't good comparators for customer service, because they're a regulated profession and as such have to answer to a regulatory body in a way that someone who works in a call centre doesn't. So they do have an extra layer of obligation, even potential criminal sanctions if they fuck it up badly enough, whereas that's not true of someone on 21k in a remote call centre type role.

The fact is that we have a tight labour market and workers as a whole have more choices than they used to. That evidently means you can't have the service you want at the rate you want to pay, and the proof of that is in the pudding. What you've written here is basically you just saying you don't like that. Your 'should' in shit situation doesn't actually matter, it isn't going to get the whole customer service sector back into the office for the crap wages they're mostly on.

That's nice. What does it have to do with the terms and conditions employers need to offer customer service staff in order to get them all to work in person?

I don't really mind if customer service people are at home. I mind when they are distracted and doing other things. If you're in the office you'd need to ignore the front door. So ignore it when at home. If you're in the office you can't look after kids. So don't look after them at home.
People on here always say one reason they like working at home is the money they save on commuting. So people want to save that money AND have a pay rise? The problem is if you start increasing the pay for lower paid workers too much then higher paid workers need to rise as well. Do you think may people in stressful professions would do it if they could earn as much doing something else? So their money would rise as well. And everyone would pay more for everything. Meaning their original wage increase is now worth nothing.
For example I pay a lot of money to my indemnity insurance. If I have a problem I call them for help. Maybe they work at home. Maybe they don't. I don't know. But regardless say they demand a pay rise in order for them to actually help me without distractions. They get it. In order to pay that the company increases my indemnity. In order to pay for that the dentistry prices need to go up. So people are now paying more for my service so I can pay more for their service. And so on.
I'm not denying some jobs deserve more money and everyone should have a decent living wage. But you can't expect all professions to paid extremely well. Life can't work like that.

@Badgerandfox227

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

Isn't it ironic that nearly all the big employers moved to London in the first place "to access the best talent" apparently, but now people no longer want to work there! It looks like we're going through a full 360 to where people could actually work in the home towns etc rather than be sucked into the SE to get the good jobs!

@NonPlayerCharacter
'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.'

Last week we had a Zoom brainstorming meeting. One person was in the open plan office and everyone else was WFH.

The person who was in the office has to repeatedly mute themselves because we could hear conversations/phone calls in the office so he could not really participate in the meeting as he wanted. This is a small office and there was no free meeting rooms where he could have gone to have a quiet space. The office internet connection is also abysmal.

My point is that noise and distractions can also be an issue in offices, especially when people don't have access to decent premises. The last time I was in the office my work was disturbed all afternoon by two people gossiping loudly....

The post of mine you initially quoted was in reply to someone who thinks those jobs shouldn't be done at home.

With regards to the rest, I don't expect customer service staff to be paid the same as a dentist, for example, but the fact remains that what they're being paid at the moment clearly isn't enough for the sector to have sufficient staff to provide the service people want. The proof is in the pudding.

Again, it's supply and demand. We're in a society that doesn't have enough workers, which not only has direct impact in recruitment for lower paid and less attractive roles, but also means some of the provisions people need in order to work aren't necessarily there either. The childcare sector has shrunk, for example, and we have a national shortage of bus drivers. These things are not affected by anyone's subjective belief about the customer service standards they're entitled to.

What this means in practice is that people who are in or would potentially take a customer service role don't have to pay any attention to arguments about why they shouldn't be paid more to work in person. There isn't any way round that whilst labour market conditions remain as they are.

I also have to prepare myself for telephone conversations.

I'd rather hear someone's dog bark at the postman than hear a call centre in the background. The dog can't listen in on my conversation, whereas the call centre supervisor could be stood behind the operator earwigging and there's a small but possible chance that the supervisor is my abusive ex.

And, having worked in that kind of open plan office myself, I'd rather the operator was comfortable in an environment that they can control.

I guess you just need to keep finding roles that allow you to work remotely? I wouldn't worry about hypotheticals until it happens.

I just came across this article. It might be helpful reading for some on this thread who think people with neurodiverse conditions can and should just cope.

Lewis Silkin - Neurodiversity, employment policies and employment claims: what’s the latest?

Thanks for the article, it’s an interesting read. When I used to work as a legal secretary, one of the solicitors we often dealt with (mostly conveyancing) was Lewis Silkin who are not a huge law firm but they are (or were) one of the law firms with a good and respected reputation amongst other solicitors, so it’s good to see their employment law department has taken this up and acted on it by placing the information on neurodiversity on their website. I hope other smaller and larger law firms follow their example.

I have never come across what you have described, not once have I called up the bank or electricity company and had "sorry got to get the door". Most people who work from home are set up for it and professional. You'd be surprised how many call centre people are now fully working from home. My company now has home workers in their call centre who are fully remote.

It seems phenomenally common on MN though!

How often do you make calls to call centres? Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly?

I make calls daily due to work, mostly to HMRC but also to other governmental departments, local council, etc. It's a bloody nightmare. You wait a long time to even speak to someone, and then it's 50:50 whether you can actually hear them due to poor signal/line, and if you can hear them, it's 50:50 whether they can action your request due to "slow internet today" or "my laptop's crashed" or "I don't know how to do that", and maybe half the time there is also disturbance in the background, between barking dogs, kids crying, doorbell ringing, etc etc. meaning I constantly have to repeat myself because they're not concentrating.

Not all, plenty of people thrived during lockdown, myself included. We are all not one thing and many of us have no desire to ever see another colleague in person again. Thankfully I have a job where I can make that demand. Goodbye no sleep, long commutes and forced social interaction, won't miss you.

I was being positive. You are not and I think that's where you'll struggle in life. Take care and all the best.

By telling someone who already struggles with certain aspects of work to just up and start a business? That's not positive that's unhelpful.

Why not? It's an idea. I'm not demanding OP do as I say.
I'm in the same boat by the way.WFH was the best thing to happen to me. The only difference is I have a long-term a d secure position. Op does not. She is however in a unique position with inside knowledge and perhaps has met others in the same boat.

OP I wish you all the best and hope you find the answers you seek.

The drop in productivity of just one person in our office when WFH spoiled it for all of us and we were all told to come back in and only WFH under special circumstances.

Lots of hopeless managers who would rather blanket enforce rules rather than address the issues with an individual

@Yowlingcat that often happens with companies, either one person drops in productivity and management can’t be bothered to manage them so they take away WFH.

I was thinking of interviewing for a role where it’s a PA role and when the bosses tried to ring her she was unavailable for ages with no or an inadequate reason. They now are reluctant to offer WFH unless it’s after a long period of trust with their new PA (the other one left).

I’ve noticed I’ve got to be strict with myself when WFH/hybrid over Covid and now, it’s so easy to either do a half hearted job or really slack off, with no one looking over your shoulder. If I really wanted to I could get another job and do 2 at the same time but I’m too honest to do that, other people do it though (I don’t think I know them) and if you’re caught, not many employers would condone this.
On the flip side though, I know at least 2 legal secretaries in smaller law firms who are working mothers but find WFH suits them better than going into the office. They both work very hard, one does overflow typing during the day/evenings and the other works 9-5 but at home both 5 days a week, both have done this pre-Covid 19 for a few years.

Why do you hope not?

Jesus - you could do another job? No wonder this country has such a problem.