to think some people would be weirdly excited if WFH came to an end?

[LoveWFH]

Why do some posters sound almost delighted at the thought of Nigel Farage stopping WFH?

There’s this tone of “that’ll teach them” whenever it comes up. As if people working from home have been getting away with something.

Here’s the practical bit though. My company couldn’t bring everyone back full time even if it wanted to. They’ve sold off chunks of the office space. Whole buildings gone. Desks gone. Leases not renewed. There literally isn’t room for everyone anymore.

Hybrid working isn’t some trendy phase. It’s how a lot of businesses are set up now. They’ve planned for it. Budgeted for it. Recruited around it.

You can’t magically create space that no longer exists.

If you prefer being in the office, fair enough. Plenty of people do. But I don’t get the satisfaction at the idea of other people losing flexibility that works for them and their employer.

Trying to impose working from the office on people who don't want to, who have a better life balance by wfh, have flexibility around other responsibilities isn't anything to with concern for them though. There's literally no reason for it except to push them into something someone else says they should do. The driver for that is jealousy - either of their arrangements, or the fact they have a degree of autonomy.

They find a job with a set-up that gives them what they need and want? In exactly the same way people who wfh have. Why is it so difficult to grasp?

A lot of the resentment towards remote working is from blokes who object to women being supported in making their lives more family friendly.

These are often men with “facilitating” wives who do all the childcare and chores and have enjoyed decades of being able to take large amounts of working hours to go to the pub or dick about on the golf course safe in the knowledge that their SAH wives would manage everything on the home front. Ot just making a point of presenteeism so they can be seen to have their bums on an office chair past 6pm.

WFH irritates them because it reminds them that women are often far more productive than they are out of necessity because they usually don’t have “facilitating” husbands who can do all the domestic work. So they bitch about people “stealing time from their employers” for having the temerity to take five minutes to put a load of washing on when they have no compunction about stealing several hours in the pub “networking”.

Its based on insecurity about the fact that their historical dominance at work is eroding and it’s absolutely pathetic. I’m not surprised Farage champions this self martyred bullshit.

What a fucking post.

It is weird that on the one hand you have the "women used to be much happier being housewives" narrative. Also the (post divorce) "SAHMs have it so much easier than people having to get up and go out.to work all day" narrative.
But then the same people will argue "WFH is just so bad for people's.mental health. It's actually out of concern for their well-being we need to stop it..imagine how awful being stuck at home all day with no adult contact is for those poor young people."

For what it's worth I think people are different and benefit from different things. Some people might enjoy WFH (or being a SAHM to a small baby). Others need the hustle and bustle of an office and would be climbing the walls. But the faux concern is somewhat hypocritical. Especially from a party that also thinks women should be giving up their careers to pop out lots of babies in their 20s.

Exactly! I don’t know why this is hard for people to comprehend. DH always complains about his commute and then complains that people working from home have it easy. I pointed out that if they all went into the office his commute would take twice as long.

Likewise, he’s forever complaining about buses “taking up space”. Again I pointed out that if all 50 or so people on the bus were in individual cars instead, it would take up a lot more space. I honestly don’t know how his head works.

It's jealousy, pure & simple!! Why should they all be able to wfh when I can't? Get a new career then if wfh is your sole wish in your working life.

@AmusedShark ,

I did in the pandemic, and it wasn’t great, but I am also middle class and middle aged, and had a study to work from.

Of course, the ability to work from home is a boon, and all work is a negotiation between willing employer and willing employee.

But I still see a lot of drawbacks from accepting a lot of working from home on a population level, both social and economic.

i think a lot of people remember their first jobs fondly, both for being learning and social environments (with a lot of overlap between the two).

I work for a government department and we are moving to another office where there won’t be enough desks for everyone. We don’t have any dealing with the public and we coped perfectly well during COVID and can still WFH with no issues so not sure what Reform would do about that if they get in

And a lot of people don't remember their first jobs fondly.

People who WFH and advocate for it really don't care what other people do. And are not claiming that it works for everyone or that everyone should be force do do it.

But people against it, like yourself who also often don't have a huge amount of experience of living it are constantly saying no, it's bad because of X or Y or only works for some imagined demographic or whatever.

This thread and every other thread on the subject is about working in the ofifice being forced on everyone.

And your empathy bypass or willful ignorance about how WFH may just work wonderfully for many people because you think it doesn't really, or won't work for everyone is pointless no matter how many studies you link.

If you think people should be forced into working conditions that adversely effect their lives, happiness and mental and financial health then that's just weird, abusive and controlling of you.

People should have choices. If you want to remove those choices then maybe you should look at yourself and ask why.

Especially since as you say, they don't personally effect you in the slightest as a worker or employer so why are you so intent on wanting to impose it on others.

I could have worked from home but chose not to. It would have made my life much easier if I had. A few of team did because that’s what they liked to do. But our department worked much more efficiently when we were all together and we could hear each other talking to clients and deal with problems really quickly. We provided a much better service. I think some people want to do what’s easier for them and don’t take other colleagues or service users into consideration.

People act like WFH didn't exist pre-covid. I've WFH since 2013! It's really not a new thing.

@AmusedShark ,

‘This thread and every other thread on the subject is about working in the ofifice being forced on everyone.’

That is a gross simplification of what my posts said.

‘And your empathy bypass or willful ignorance about how WFH may just work wonderfully for many people because you think it doesn't really, or won't work for everyone is pointless no matter how many studies you link.’

Given that my studies are mostly about the adverse effect of WFH on young people, I think it is you who has had an empathy bypass. As long as you are nice and warm in your comfy home office, never mind the young person in their childhood bedroom with no effective mentoring or role models.

It’s a discussion. I think that, on a population level, it would be better for everyone to spend more time in an office/joint work space. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be exceptions, nor that employers should have a degree of flexibility. I am entitled to my opinion without being insulted.

I think the argument for having some colocated working in order to improve communication and to mentor junior staff is absolutely legitimate. Meeting and spending time with people does massively improve relationships.

But one of the key arguments against working from home is that it damages productivity. Anyone who has ever worked in any white collar job can tell you how phenomenally wasteful and unproductive office work can be in the average workplace. A lot of offices are more or less designed to prevent people from getting on with their jobs, with endless pointless meetings, time sucking chit-chat and performative management bigfootery.

I know from personal experience that my productivity has doubled when I am at home. It would be physically impossible to fit the work I have to do into my schedule if I had to be fully office based.

So I really resent this narrative that remote workers are all workshy skivers.

I managed staff who wfh in 2001.

With dial-up internet 🤣

Vintage!

Ah working from home without Teams must have been bliss 😂

Work is not a “social activity” for a huge number of people, it’s a means to an end and a way to earn a living. Nothing more than that.

Plenty of people get their social interaction from friends, family, communities, hobbies, sport, volunteering. Not from compulsory proximity to colleagues they didn’t choose.

The idea that happiness or “human connection” only happens in an office is very narrow and usually comes from people whose own circumstances make the office work for them.

For many others the commutes, caring responsibilities, disability, neurodivergence, cost of living or doing work better alone. WFH isn’t a luxury, it’s a massive quality-of-life improvement.

Offices should be an option where possible, not a moral virtue. Forcing people back under the banner of culture or “socialising” says more about management preferences than human wellbeing.

Well they have a point because if you’re going to be working 5 days a week / up to 10 hours per day, then yes, it plays an important part of social relationships.

That doesn’t mean being bezzy mates with colleagues, it means not being isolated in your home office working alone. Just proximity to other humans. Especially as not everyone has time for clubs, volunteering and friends every weekend, so yes, it can be important for mental health.

But then, this is an argument for hybrid working, not full office. Or even just going to a library of cafe to work, anything other than being holed up at home.

Well said.

If you don't waste 3 hours a day commuting you have time for hobbies.

We have the option to be FT office or hybrid where I am. It has saved the public sector millions. People are healthier as we have more time to exercise and cook. Also sick people WFH if they can, so less germs go around and less sick time is taken. Teenagers who are largely self sufficient can have a parent on hand, working from home. Women aren’t run ragged. The only people who don’t like it have jobs where it’s not possible for them.

It's particularly obnoxious when espoused by people who simply refuse to acknowledge that they are not the default. That a workplace model where in person attendance was assumed fucked over many people, and those who did well out of it may have done so at their expense.

It's one thing if you just hadn't thought of it until it was pointed out. People often don't notice what's not there. But that poster is more than aware now.

From the article: Almost a fifth of people who choose to work from home said a lack of socialising was the main reason for their job dissatisfaction.

And yet they still choose to work from home, so clearly other benefits outweigh job satisfaction.

It’s important to apply critical thinking to anything if you want to understand it. If you just want your opinion to be heard, no need to bother of course.

People with school-age children, not really, even with WFH. Can’t fit social hobbies into a 1h lunch break, and cant go after.

There are obviously some social benefits from working alongside other people in the week. Does that outweigh all of the benefits of WFH? No, imo.

Speaking as a person with school aged children in the plural, yes really.

There'll be some people whose circumstances are such that they can't use the time saved on commuting for a hobby outside the home, such as single parents with no support whose school aged children are too young to be left. But they aren't the majority of that cohort.