To wonder how we ever did 5 days a week in an office?

[OptimismvsRealism]

I work hard and love my job (legal). Spent a day in the office today for the first time in months and honestly feel sick. The people flu! I couldn't go back. All those blokes in the City saying WFH was an "aberration" are deluded.

I get that some people love it and there's enough diversity in this world for everyone to find their niche but Oh My God am I glad I don't have to do the daily traipse any more.

It's absolutely not enough staff. I work for my LA and part of my job is a 2 hour slot on the phones each day. The technology we have is amazing, despite working from home. There just isn't enough of us to manage demand

That's because you want certain things and thrive on certain things. Not everyone is like you.

I used to contemplate suicide a lot at work (especially when I was a trainee but to be honest up until I was well qualified very regularly). After COVID, although everything around COVID drove me wild and I was fiercely against lockdown, I haven't really seriously thought about it once.

Social beings don't need the office. We existed before it did.

Wow OP, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone on here before, with quite such an uncanny ability to be so condescending to anyone with an opposing view!

I'm mid 20s and my job requires attendance in person for stuff but I hybrid work.

I'm glad I can wfh because as a Black woman I can largely avoid microaggressions

Yes - I love my WFH job - go in 1 day a week - can’t do office politics anymore - dealing with people wanting different temperatures in the office and colleagues moaning! So glad i can WFH!

Should be required reading for everyone who wants to say hybrid and remote are bad for young people.

I deliberately said this isn’t about personal choice. It isn’t what I prefer, it’s about what’s good for us as a society. You can disagree and think WFH is good for us, as some have, but you can’t say it’s just my preference or yours. I think it’s good for people to get outside of their comfort zones and engage with other people. It helps us all.

I think it's more about your team if you work with people who want to develop you it's fine but if you have a team who don't care it's different.

But when I'm in the office and face microaggressions it's exhausting I couldn't imagine doing it five days a week.

No it doesn't. I'd happily see the human population reduced by 50% right now. Having to sit around them is no benefit.

I don't know their policy but in my office those that work from home answer MORE calls and emails

That’s a ridiculous statement. Millions of women managed it when they had no choice - you would just make it work.

That’s a “you” problem, not a society problem.

I hated WFH full time, as did a number of people I know. It had a major impact on our mental health. As the previous poster said, that’s not the case for everyone, but you have to understand there are lots of people that need that human interaction and don’t function well WFH, and that excluding a significant number of jobs that physically can’t be done at home.

And lots more didn't, couldn't. If we're going to talk about what things were like before 2020, that also has to include all the people who were excluded.

Out of interest, what micro aggressions do you face? Genuinely interested, as not black so would like to know what your experience is. I’m still shocked that in this day and age you should have a different experience in the office to a white woman (although the fact I have to specify woman is also wrong!)

They made it work, not saying it was always easy. Statistics show less people are in employment than before Covid, not more.

Personally I don’t know anyone that couldn’t work pre covid that now can because of WFH

And not everyone is like you!

Who's 'they'? Lots of people did, yeah. Others didn't. That's a fact. It's simply not the case that people just got on with it, because there were people who couldn't make it work in 2019.

There are indeed fewer people working now than pre covid. But there are a lot of reasons for that, and it doesn't affect the fact that there are people who did not make it work before.

Most women in the history of time were excluded from the workplace. Enough is enough.

cant imagine anything worse than 5 days in an office all day

why the need for a race to the bottom?

People have managed through a lot of very unpleasant conditions. It doesn't mean we shouldn't work to improve work and life conditions.

If everyone had that attitude, young kids would still be working. After all, they "managed" for centuries.

As an aside, the number of Sunday threads about people desperate at the idea of their work week in the office has reduced A LOT since Covid...

I think a lot of people think WFH means never going into the office, whereas the majority of us who do WFH, also spend a few days in the office too.

Another misconception is that calls go unanswered due to WFH - well no matter where I’m working, my calls either come through via teams or via my work mobile. It’s not like my desk phone (if I still had one) rings unanswered due to WFH

Totally agree. I'm in a situation now (caring for elderly parents) where I couldn't work in the office, so I'm incredibly lucky that things have gone this way. But even if I didn't have this caring role, the idea of having to go into the office every day seems unbearable now, and a colossal inconvenience for no good reason. Having said that, I used to be fine with going into the office twice a week.

I much prefer working at work and keeping the division between work and home. I really love the team of people I work with and I would miss the laughter so much if I didn’t go in. I like us all leaving for work/school and doing our different things and then discussing it at dinner. I completely get why others love working from home but it really isn’t for me.