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)

I do a fortnightly visit.

Interestingly I go in on a Friday, and found about 15 people in even though only two desks were booked. I've been curious as to whether they'd track using the desk booking system, but clearly that would be futile.

Trouble with our system is that they want people on the office two days a week to collaborate, but they also give everyone free rein over when they attend. It's convenient for me to come in at times where virtually nobody is there.

My line manager has cancelled coming in due to childcare reasons when I've gone in twice, and he frequently has his school refusing child with him during the working day, so he is well aware that he doesn't have a leg to stand on ordering his team in anyway. So I'm not particularly worried.

Who is she to argue? A human being in charge of her own life... She can clearly do her job. Employers pay employees to get a specific job done. She's either doing it or she's not. Why do they care where she's sat to do it? I ignore nonsensical requests too.

YANBU by the sound of things. I'm all for people not going in if they don't really have to.

I do quite a specialist role so my team is all over the country as the best way to actually recruit people, so we don't have mandatory office days. I go in once a week as I am near and it's a pretty nice office in a landmark building, plus I like a change of scene.

Then you've worked in some terrible places

Do you work in the public sector?

Do people complain?

Our company have just increased the requirement from 2 days to 3 days and are now monitoring it, which they didn’t before. I preferred 2 days as I have quite a long commute, but it’s infinitely better than the 5 days we all did before. I was doing the required 2 days previously, but a lot of people weren’t, so now they’ve increased it and formalised it.

I really don’t think it’s a big ask for the organisation who employee me, to expect me in the office 3 days a week and I do enjoy seeing my colleagues. My work are being very reasonable about exceptions, my daughter is currently off school for 2 weeks after an operation so I only did 1 day last week, it wasn’t an issue at all and I don’t have to make those days up. I will make sure I do my 3 days next week now she’s a bit more mobile and DH can do some extra WFH days. I really, really don’t want to go back to 5 days a week so happy to comply with 3.

Yeah, because productivity and the economy has been so much better since Covid opened the floodgates to the WFH culture hasn't it?

We had to phone one of our suppliers for our business recently. The office phone gave us a messge saying the person in question was out of the office and please email her.

We emailed her. It was urgent. We really needed to speak to a human being ASAP. 3 days later she emailed back. She said 'sorry, I was WFH last week so I didn't have access to the office phone.'

Seriously? You WFH and don't have a phone you can use to make important buisness calls? What the actual fuck?

There are very few jobs where you don’t need to have any interactions with others to do your job better. Yes that can be done remotely but often it takes longer (need to find a slot in the diary to call, hunt someone down on teams). Where as in the office can just go and ask them or catch before/after a meeting. Hybrid meetings are really difficult and mainly those on the screen get ignored. And there is the training aspect, the picking up on subtle things and building relationships that’s is not tangible but really beneficial. We are meant to be in 2 days a week, I’m normally in 3-4 as a senior manager. WFH is better from a logistics point of view (can pick up the kids earlier, can cook dinner or do a wash in my lunch break) but I appreciate it’s more productive to go into the office sometimes.

I'm a civil servant

How ironic. Civil also means courteous and polite.

I've already been promoted twice since adopting this policy.

I'm a better manager than the "well everyone else is doing it 🤪" ones.

How is "hunting someone down on teams" harder than finding them in a massive office? Then discovering they are busy and having to go back again later?

Former office cleaner

Office workers are some of the rankest humans I've ever had the misfortune to clean up after I literally have had homeowners with serious mobility issues whose homes were cleaner once a week than an office that was cleaned DAILY

cleaners tend to come after hours
so am 8 am shit stain if not washed away by flush, will have to wait

If they are paid by outcome, it isn’t skiving.

If they are paid to work for a specified length of time, it is.

Skiving and cheating.

Our company closed my office following C19 so we’re all on a WFH contract now, which I love. If we need to meet face to face (at least monthly) then we book a meeting room.

DH is supposed to be in the office 3 x a week now and mostly does it, though occasionally only does 2. It’s ridiculous though as not a single member of his team is based in the same office so he’s still working remotely with them with teams meetings for everything.

Glad I don't work for you. You've sneered at your colleagues, called them weirdos and said you don't give a shit if office cleaners lose their jobs. You've also made an ageist comment. You sound vile and entitled but I guess if you work for a company where the toilet bowl is covered in shit by 9.00am, then it's probably not a very discerning place overall.

It’s unofficial and unenforced where I work, but I sense things bubbling up. My department is mainly quieter people who relish the hybrid option. There are a couple of people people who want to be able to walk up to someone’s desk and interrupt them (for things that shouldn’t have been left to get urgent) or expect people to drop everything to answer their questions over the phone who don’t like it, which ends up not being documented so is inefficient. I think if you plan ahead and are organised then you can get your work done anywhere. It does depend on the nature of the work; if you’re doing complex deep thought work then having people buzzing about is distracting. But it’s also nice to see people occasionally and have the ability to ask informal questions. I love hybrid working and am surprised that people moan about 1-2 days per week after having to drag ourselves in 5 days for so many years. I see wfh as a privilege and not a right, it’s made my job a lot more attractive and I’m not looking for promotion or another position as a result.

i work closely with our ceo - he was really keen to get everyone back to the office 50%

but just as we were going to officially enforce it - he backtracked as we got a lot of push back on it - and he is very very pro employee happiness and wellness etc - and he decided to just leave it as it was - company had its highest profit in years in 2024 and he doesn’t want to rock the boat / make decent employees who work hard leave for somewhere else !!

OP is apparently a fairly senior Civil Servant. The other meaning of "civil " has passed her by.

Surely if your job is working off a laptop then connecting with others can be done over Microsoft Teams?

I’ve had job interviews over Teams, training presentations over Teams, shared screens for job shadowing over Teams. It’s been much more productive than going into the office.

I really don’t see any need in my job to go into office. I do go in once a week and It’s just a skive really, difficult to get things done when people are chattering around you.

They are like this, I’d say probably an hour after the day starts as people do their morning toilet trip. Ours get cleaned regularly but I’ve been in some mornings and every bowl has been dirty. Ours now have a notice saying please look behind you before you leave.

Yes and the coughing weirdos, shit riddled bogs. It's all a bit dramatic.

Are you ok op?

Yes, you should go in for your 2 days a week and maybe meet the people you manage.

Yes, all this "I did my work for today so I'll stop now" makes little if any sense in most office situations.

You're not given a daily quota of only 10 files to process and then will only get a new allocation the next day.

What I really hate when in the office, particularly if it is open plan, is the way people feel free to wander along to interrupt you at any time, and you can't really tell them to bog off. Prearranged meetings when I can make sure I'm not in the middle of something else and have prepared properly are so much better.

Yep, really overdramatic. Suspect the OP isn't as well thought of as they think they are