To ask if you (also) just ignore your "required" days in the office?

[Everythingisnumbersnow]

I am supposed to do two days. But the office is a minging hotdesk box full of coughing weirdos and the toilets are smeared with shit by 910am.

I can't do my job well in the office so I just don't go. I do manage people and they seem to appreciate the flexibility (half go into the office sometimes, half never do, we perform well).

Anyway it's been a real eye opener for the power of low key just defying silly rules.

Anyone else?

(If they cracked down I'd go elsewhere)

In our office we had been asked to come in 3 times a week, some people never did because they didn’t make it mandatory and we had flexibility. Some people hardly ever came in and ruined it for everyone so they made it mandatory and now have to track passes swiping in. Bonuses are deducted in you don’t make the monthly average and as a manager mine is if anyone on my team don’t make their days.

Perhaps the person who's supposed to clean the toilets has also decided that they won't bother going in 😅

People saying they'll just switch jobs don't realise you have to go through an interview process highlighting the fact you don't want to be in the office.

Why would people not realise this?

I was offered two jobs last week. One is 2 days a week in the office but pretty flexible, the other was even less - the person who would have been my manager goes in once a week and was fine for other people to do the same.
I had another interview a few weeks ago for a job I wasn't offered where in the interview the manager shrugged and said "well I think we put 2 days a week on the job advert but really it would be up to you. I don't do 2 days every week"

Obviously this is very industry dependent. I think fully remote jobs (in my industry at least) are rare, but very flexible, very hybrid roles, are more common. The recruiter I worked with for these interviews told me she was seeing a few more companies requesting more time in the office, but often then reducing that a bit as they just weren't getting the applicants they wanted. I'd be wary of taking a job where that had happened because I'd assume they'd up it as soon as you started, but it shows people don't want to apply for full time office roles (I certainly instantly rejected any like that because I think they have a more old fashioned culture that I don't like) and if you've got skills people want, you can choose the hybrid roles.

I chose the 2 days a week job because it was better overall. But if going in was something I really didn't want to do, the other job was only a day a week and the salary was the same.

I don’t work from home but I know that if you do your job well and stay low key, most businesses that I’ve worked for let you get on with it and don’t interfere.

So have I and the toilets are always fine. There's a cleaner every day in most offices.

I assumed OP was referring to skid-marks in the pan rather than shit on the wall.

Maybe OP can clarify.

It's not nice either way, but the first suggests inconsiderate colleagues, while the second suggests a colleague with a serious mental illness and severe hostility towards others.

Remote working has levelled the playing field for me as well. My profile and level of responsibility has increased hugely because of remote working (because everyone was doing it). I have a chronic health condition which means I can’t manage the office really but I can do my job fully and well by wfh.

Boomers and Gen X have spent the majority of working life in an era where working from home was much rarer than it is today; it didn't start to become a cultural norm until relatively recently, and wasn't widely feasible for corporate office jobs until the advent of near-universal home broadband. I don't think there's any single generation that's more reluctant to go into the office than another.

I avoid the office like the plague.

It is in an old building that needs a full refurbishment (including leaks in the roof)

There is only one toilet that everyone uses and it can be grim. No lift and lots of stairs to climb.

Everyone is crammed in a small room (so it gets really noisy) with shitty wi-fi and it is impossible to do any decent work there.

This is a charity so they get away with saying the refurbishment takes time as it is expensive and just expect staff to work in these conditions.

I work part-time and live 2 hours away and I only come in when there is a specific event that requires my presence as the office environment is not fit for purpose.

I do 2 days wfh, 2 days in the office (mandated). It’s a good mix for me. The office is fine, if sometimes a bit chilly (though not as cold as it gets at home), but I like my team, we have a good laugh, and I like the change of scene. I have never worked anywhere that has rank toilets as described by the OP.

I would hate to start a new job with a fully remote team or one that only came in sporadically.

WFH full time is rubbish for new starters and young people who often don’t have a good set up at home to work from (one young guy in our office was using his ironing board as a desk).

As a senior manager, I think it's extremely poor that you don't go in. How do you have supervisions and provide guidance to your team if you can't be bothered?

We have to go in 3 days a week otherwise we don’t get a bonus. My boss is in 5 and makes it clear that he would prefer us all in, all the time. I do 3 most of the time but sometimes 4.

I find this attitude so many people have towards workplaces being some sort of torture and other people unbearable to be around, absolutely bizarre.

There is nothing I hate more than working from home.

Most of my best friends have been made through work over the couple of decades I've been in the workplace. People from all different walks of life to me, all different ages and nationalities, different cultures and so on. They have enriched my life immensely and lasted years beyond the workplaces we once shared.

I find work an incredibly stimulating and creative environment. I have learned so much from my colleagues over the years, and I continue to find it invaluable to be able to talk over ideas or issues with colleagues while at work, to help me get a different perspective. Work should be collaborative.

I fear for the younger generations who have come into the workplace in the past 5 or so years, and those coming into it now, where so many of their colleagues are just faces on a screen and they are only able to come into a physical office once per week. I think it's going to continue to exacerbate loneliness in our society, and also lead to the deskilling of people when it comes to professional competencies, and social skills. I wouldn't be half the person I am today if I hadn't had people older and wiser than me to learn from and grow alongside in my twenties and early thirties. I had some fabulous managers who took me under their wing and helped teach me the skills I am now able to pass on to my younger colleagues. If I had worked from home, I would never have built those relationships or be able to watch and learn from interactions around me in the workplace.

I find it deeply disturbing that so many people hate other people so much that they would rather spend all day in their spare room behind their computer screen, not having to interact with anyone unless it's entirely on their own terms. It's turning people inwards and it's denying younger people the opportunity to build social networks and social skills. We need community to function as a society, and workplaces are a key element of that.

I have to go in two days a week and have a strict untrustworthy manager who enforces it and is huffy if I suggest changing the days or working from home one of the days due to certain projects or things on at work. I know others at my place who just go in one day a week but they aren’t very strict on enforcing it, and others who are allowed to do the school run etc. so I think it depends on who your manager is which seems a bit unfair overall that some parts of the company doing similar work seem to get away with more than others. Personally I would be more flexible.

I was working from home where I didn't need to interact with anyone in the office, the people that I worked with were all on remote sites so it was a lot of teams meetings. They then brought in a compulsory "everyone back in the office" rule, which would have meant me going into either the nearest office (10 hot desks) or one of the remote sites (2 hours min travel time each way) so as I couldn't be bothered fighting it I left, decided to retire early and as I did it just before the Christmas shutdown and I had 5 days holiday that I was planning to carry over I only had 5 days left to work, which I did at home and they were left without someone doing my role at a critical part of the project, which really, really left them in a mess

Those are the benefits of being older!

Umm no, I go in my three.days a week but then we also have a nice office with adjustable desks, two monitors per desk, free hot drinks and a subsidised canteen. Most importantly we have cleaners and colleagues who, it appears, know how to use a toilet correctly.

I would suggeat your work place has more issues than people ignoring their mandatory office days.

I go in twice a week, but only need to once per week. I work in software development and need to do a fair bit of collaboration in my role and it is so much easier in person, we resolve so many more issues sitting side by side for 7 hours than we do messaging back and fourth or in teams calls. Our remote hires have been overlooked for the major/best projects for this reason, and we aren’t taking any more fully remote staff on either.

I'm supposed to attend the office 60% off my work week. There's an attendance tool in place which logs whenever you log on in the office. What it doesn't monitor though, is when you log off, or how long you're there...😊

so someone gets in early and has a shit which leaves smears in the bowl?
and you dont like that? enough to not go in.

i think you should show willing and go in and dont be such a wimp about coughs and other bodily events, personally.

No.

Most of my team don't wfh although they could. I think the requirement is 3 days in for full time. I work 3 days and have quite a big commute so do alternate 2 and 1 day. Ironically it was my line manager pushing it only coming in 1 day!

Good point. I’m at the tail end of the boomers and I’m 64. A lot of my contemporaries have already taken early retirement.

Maybe your colleagues are happy that you wfh OP.

Well, quite. I wholeheartedly agree that were there to be a group of 20 random people in your workplace, there would certainly be at least one arsehole.

I do yes and so does my dh. Why wouldn't we, it's compulsory and it's a job I get paid to do