To be annoyed that I’m the only one in the office?

[Nolarbear]

Woke up this morning at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep because I had a banging headache. Thought to myself I really cba going into the office today but got to just get on with it. We are only in the office 2 days a week.

Got to the office and everyone else is working from home. I got in at 8 and by 9am I’m wondering where everyone is and I get a teams message from my manager saying himself and the others are WFH because they don’t feel great. I feel really annoyed that I made the effort to come in when I also don’t feel great, when the rest of them haven’t. How is it that every single member of the team can’t come in??

I know that my colleagues take the piss. They work from home over the slightest inconvenience. The slightest flurry of snow and they don’t come in even though the rest of us can get in and we live in the same place. Maybe it’s just me, I have only been here 6 months and I’m not used to such a relaxed team. In my old office you’re either well enough to work or you’re not. And if you WFH too many times or your reasons aren’t acceptable, manager would just simply say no. I do enjoy being part of a more relaxed team but I feel like I always make the effort to come in (it’s TWO days a week ffs) and the others can’t even get through one whole month without an excuse to wfh.

I feel like I should be more like them and be like well if this is the way it is then maybe i’ll do the same. But I frankly find it embarrassing calling in asking to work from home because I’ve got a bit of a cold or “sinus pressure” as one person said today. I get it if you’ve got a really bad cold and you can’t get out of bed. But my colleagues aren’t getting bed bounding illnesses at least once a month surely?! My colleague messaged me saying “why don’t you ask manager if you can leave as you’re the only one in the office? I would do” but again, I just find it wet and pathetic at my adult age asking if I can go home because I’m on my own. So what? It’s not like I can’t work on my own. I’d be on my own at home too. I just find it baffling.

The reason why it annoys me is because I always make the effort to come in and I just wonder why I bother if I don’t need to. Maybe I need to just relax and do what the rest of them do but I don’t actually want to take the piss!

I'd be raging if I was expected to come in via an uber (40 one way for me so 80) if public transport cancelled but OP i understand you, my team (only 4 of us) are supposed to be in the office 2 set days a week, I'm usually the only one there and I rearranged care for it, rest of them use any excuse going to be fair they do their job well WFH so would rather the contractual obligation just wasn't there

I think how strictly it applies varies a lot.

I couldn't work from home 5 days a week, so I wouldn't accept a job that was fully wfh. Being in an office on my own does not help - I need a certain amount of face to face communication ( for tasks that others might be happy to do remotely). So if a job was advertised as hybrid, and it turned out to be mostly wfh, I would feel that the job had been mis - sold.

Also, it seems that OP's colleagues are being flaky? It's not just wfh, it's flakiness.

Not sure why the martyr comments given all you're doing is not taking the piss and actually wanting to have a nice team environment. Just do what your other colleague do and wfh and do bare minimum, I'd also start looking for another job where people actually give a shit. I couldn't stand working somewhere where people have zero work ethic and are only into doing the bare minimum

Wfh isn't usually very effective if your job requires you to work and interact with others, and working in isolation with zero team culture or with a bunch of anti social introverts is usually quite a depressing way to spend such a large majority of your time

They aren't off though are they. They are working from home. You make it sound like they're sat in their pants watching TV. Are you one of those people who can't get work done at home?

But they aren't fulfilling a work obligation that they signed a contract to do, which was attend in person on certain days. They are using extremely thin excuses to not complete this particular expectation. And in person attendance can really matter in some settings.

This claim gets made a lot on here, and I'm always surprised how locally limited some people's understanding of interaction and team culture is. There are so many roles where people need to achieve that with colleagues who don't happen to live within commuting distance of one's office. You're obviously free to be depressed by that yourself, if you want, but generalisations about effectiveness are a step further.

God, you sound like hard work OP

OP I get why you are annoyed. My workplace is 2days/week in office and 3 days wfh. 1 day is a set day and the other is a day of the persons choice. Management is quite clear that these days must be in-office unless there is an exceptional reason to not attend and this must be agreed with the line manager. Mild illness is not good enough reason but a symptomatic illness (that does not merit sickness leave) would be, if agreed with the manager. But this is by exception only (once a month maximum) and regular failure to meet the quota would result in performance improvement measures being implemented.
Suggest you check with your manager what the policy actually is and what the thresholds are before which intervention will occur. Then suit yourself, but just keep on the right side of the policy.

YABU. This is how many work places operate now, it's not the 90s. If you can work just as effectively at home, there's no reason not to.

As long as the work gets done what is the issue? Work from home, reduce traffic and emissions-win win

Again. How much emissions are produced by 20 people working from home whilst still heating the office for the 2 or 3 that turn up?

dont get me wrong I DO wfh when I need to. When I’m actually unwell. I’m not unwell, I have a headache from not sleeping great but I have insomnia and have regular headaches from lack of sleep and I just have to get on with my life

No, you're getting it all wrong. If you are actually properly ill, you don't work at all! You should not be working from home if you are unwell.

If you have a mild cold, or a headache that will go in an hour's time once the painkillers have kicked in, you work from home.

Hey! To all of the people that have commented today/last night, I’m not responding anymore saying the same things over and over. I did reply to numerous people yesterday and also made an update to say I agree that I am in the wrong here and basically I was being dick and misdirecting my anger.

If anyone else wants to leave a comment that’s obviously fine, do what you want. But please read my updates first because the same comments and conversations over and over that I’ve already responded to are boring