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.

Oh god like my great aunt and uncle who voted for- very loudly and proudly- for Brexit…. Having spent 20 years of their retirement living in Portugal between September and April every year….

They can’t do that any more of course. But they blame the Portuguese for “not playing fairly”.

Pre Covid, dh worked in a city centre. In the office 5 days a week. They have an "entertainment" budget per quarter and did a lot of team lunches.
Then came Covid, the Company was bought by a massive French one and they were relocated to a city suburb with a subsided canteen on site. Dh works primarily from home now but even if he was pushed back into the office, they wouldn't be in the city centre spending money in shops and restaurants.

Instead, he and I regularly go for lunch locally to us as I only work part time.

Wfh is my idea of hell which is why I don't do it. Dh thinks it's great which is why he does.

its jealousy

The ripple effect has changed where people socialise and shop. Round here that has been a plus as most people worked an hour away. Now that more people wfh at least some of the time more of the shop locally, go to local cafes and pubs. It’s been great for local businesses.

It hasn’t been great for the big town an hour away and one of the multi millionaires who owns lots of buildings there is very loudly shouting about how bad for ‘everyone’ wfh is.

My company have one office but staff are located all across the UK and a couple in Europe. WFH means that we can recruit the best person for a job, not the best applicant who lives within a commutable distance from the office.

@TiredofLDN I don’t understand the culture in this country of pulling up the ladder behind you.

He’s trying to appeal to the telegraph readership.

For some reason a lot of retired people, who have never worked from home, are apoplectic with rage about WFH.

I assume they have no idea what the modern workplace looks like.

The oft repeated complaint is ‘you can’t get hold of anyone if you call the council / energy provider / other call centre’. Which merely shows they don’t understand either how those jobs are managed / monitored, nor how companies operate to make money.

As others have said, it's not really something the government can control.

I agree there is room for all kinds of workers - fully office, fully remote, or hybrid!

I've cycled between at different stages of my life. They all have their pros and cons.

Well the anti-WFH thing isn’t really pulling up the ladder - as they didn’t get to do it!

Fear of change, jealousy, assumption everyone is feckless apart from them etc

It will be the Public sector that are paid through the taxpayer, HMRC, DWP, DVLC, councils, NHS, etc, etc. If you work for a private company I wouldn't worry about it

I don’t like it at all. It’s really baked in socially- from businesses right down to individual families. You see it loads on here “I didn’t get help looking after my children so I’m not helping you look after yours” from grandparents. I see it a lot in my industry too- senior figures not supporting mid level talent.

I’m not sure where it comes from- but it’s mean spirited, race to the bottom, socially destructive bollocks.

Which is weird because having more people commuting will make their unbearable commute even worse.

There's also a certain "that'll learn em" attitude. The idea that large segments of society are either taking advantage or taking you for granted and need punishing. These can include at different times-

• WFH employees- lazy, entitled, over privileged and overpaid compared to people in poorly paid "real jobs" who can't WFH
• people working and claiming benefits** (often in poorly paid "real jobs"
• parents claiming child benefits who should have worked out how to support their own kids or kept their legs together
• single people who are to selfish to breed
• carers
• disabled people
• council workers (bin men, cleaners, office staff)
• white color workers
• anyone in the creative industries

The great thing about it is, not matter who you are you can find someone in that group you feel a bit resentful of. You just have to avoid reading the bits which say bad things about you.

*It's not just an argument about the cost of benefits etc. otherwise tax evasion would be a bigger.issue to. It's more an insinuation that "people" are Taking The Piss deliberately and must be punished.

It is though. No they didn’t get to WFH- but they had better work/life balance, because they didn’t have emails on phones etc- which is what people who WFH talk about.

It doesn’t have to be an exact mapping of circumstances, for the spirit of pulling up the ladder to be there.

@MidnightPatrol

I see pulling up the ladder as more about selfishness, limiting opportunities for those behind you etc as opposed to having had to have done the exact same thing.

It doesn’t have to be an exact mapping of circumstances, for the spirit of pulling up the ladder to be there

Exactly! I thought that was the actual meaning of the phrase.

They could control it, tax breaks for companies with no wfh. A wfh tax on companies that allow it. Etc

They shouldn't, but they could.

Exactly this - 'empathy deficit or willful ignorance'.

I've not met one person who WFH and advocates for it, that thinks everybody should be forced to do it. Because we understand it doesn't work for some people.

Whereas the 'we all need to be back in the office' cheerleaders do want it to be forced on everyone, regardless of how badly it may effect others.

Of course NF and his backers and most of the government have invested in office spaces. There needs to be a discussion on what to do with these empty spaces if more people wfh/hybrid.

Having said that I was on a bus going past City Thameslink and through Farringdon this week and noticed lots of offices including Linked In’s so obviously a few people still prefer to work in the office.

Also a lot of the “everyone back to the office” culture is due to lazy/bad management.

My DD had to leave her job when they cancelled all wfh. Despite her manager and their manager agreeing she could as it worked really well for her they were overruled. Full wfh meant she increased from part time to full time. The office had moved from a 4 minute walk away into the nearest city centre over an hour away so she was never going to manage to go there even part time, let alone full time. Even health based flexi working arrangements were scrapped.

she now has a job for a company where WFH is done on an individual basis. She’s alllwed ft WFH, some people do part time WFH, a couple of people choose full time office and there are two people who aren’t allowed to wfh because they took the piss with it. Too many companies manage their workforce as a whole rather than managing problematic individuals as such.

In fact- I would say, if in some bizarre reality PM Farage bans working from home, I’ll be the first to also petition for French style labour laws.

I’ll go back to the office- but I’m not having email on my phone, and I’m not working a minute outside my 40 hours anymore. Those 60-70 hour weeks on the regular would just not happen.

My dad has weird beef with people who work from home because he’s a builder and he thinks he invented hard graft. Before WFH he felt like that about people who worked in offices 😭. I really thought he was just an isolated case but the more I speak to people the more I realise this is actually a common opinion.

It’s weird. Some people are just ideologically opposed to wfh and hate flexible working full stop.

Here’s a question. Suppose you took a job that was office based but they turned it into wfh and sold off the office space. Would your only option be to find another job?

When I had to wfh due to covid we had lots of online fun things to do including escape rooms. Maybe not a perfect solution but helped us bond a lot.

I have issues about the replacing of some of those services with automated telephone systems/AI chatbot things. But thats more to do with companies wanting to employee less real people because it's cheaper than WFH.

I don't want to turn this into an old people bashing threads. I think it pervades many strands of society. But I agree a lot of it comes from papers like the Telegraph.