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The verdict after three weeks back in the office

General Tso

HR Heisman
Nov 20, 2004
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Being in the office for any mandated period of time is pointless. I'd predict that most companies with mandated time in the office will slowly move to a purely flexible model where people come and go as they choose. I'm not against being in the office when there is a specific reason for it (like a team meeting, project, etc) but the 'spontaneous collaboration' and culture reasons are 100% bullshit. Most people are sitting in their cubes in zoom calls anyway. Fire away..m
 
A lot of companies are going to try and fight it for awhile, but they’re losing a lot of really good employees.

I think many are hoping for a recession so there are fewer jobs available because right now the worker is gaining more power.

Personally, I love seeing all these sh!tty companies crying that nobody wants to work. Not true at all... they’re just not willing to schlep into the office for your terrible pay/benefits/hours/culture. Your competitor down the street who pays a lot more and lets their people work remotely isn’t struggling.
 
Fück it. Dropping this in here. Been wanting to see what HROT dipshits thought about this….

I love the analogy of a "growth" inside our body to the idea of unlimited growth within the world's limited resources. Populations are going to level off and start dropping possibly as early as 2070...certainly within the next 100 years. Growth won't even be possible in much of that world so there will need to be a new measuremnt. However, she's calling for global cooperation and that's Just. Not. Happening. The world is going in the opposite direction. Distribute wealth? Yeah...right.

Regardless, climate change and emergent diseases are going to drive a massive extinction event. We're phvcked.
 
Working in the office furniture industry I want all you sheep to get back to the cubicle farm ASAP! It's really crazy because a lot of companies remodeled their offices when Covid first hit, they thought since everyone is going to be out for a few months we might as well do our renovations now.

So they now have these brand new offices that they sunk millions of dollars into and nobody to fill the seats. Some employers are making them come back just for this reason.
 
Working in the office furniture industry I want all you sheep to get back to the cubicle farm ASAP! It's really crazy because a lot of companies remodeled their offices when Covid first hit, they thought since everyone is going to be out for a few months we might as well do our renovations now.

So they now have these brand new offices that they sunk millions of dollars into and nobody to fill the seats. Some employers are making them come back just for this reason.
Work for a large employer in CR that had a special “welcome back” type deal this week that was very poorly attended imo. Imagine they were hoping for a lot more people but just don’t think there is much excitement at all. In my area alone there were less than 10 people where normally there would be at least 100.
 
We are supposed to start going back two days a week in June. I volunteered to work all summer in the office when the kids are home from school if I could stay home the rest of the year. my boss said talk to her boss.
 
I love the analogy of a "growth" inside our body to the idea of unlimited growth within the world's limited resources. Populations are going to level off and start dropping possibly as early as 2070...certainly within the next 100 years. Growth won't even be possible in much of that world so there will need to be a new measuremnt. However, she's calling for global cooperation and that's Just. Not. Happening. The world is going in the opposite direction. Distribute wealth? Yeah...right.

Regardless, climate change and emergent diseases are going to drive a massive extinction event. We're phvcked.
I worry that artificial inputs will keep this from happening as it normally would, and the result will be a much larger crash/implosion.

Our country seems to be reducing ways to control population growth, while encouraging/allowing more people to come and add to the population. So there's more people. I think we're also providing more resources to sustain the portion of the population that can't/won't sustain themselves, and advances in medicine extend lifespans. If we have more people that can be sustained, and we're keeping them around longer, it's going to end up being a disaster for all of us. There's be huge shortages and massive inflation as people fight/compete for limited resources. Eventually the "have nots" will have to get violent to take what they need (even if they don't "deserve" it) and there's be an actual class war.

At least that's how I see it all ending up. I'm strongly #TeamThanos and feel we need to have far fewer people to keep running efficiently. Abortion, euthanasia, death penalty, whatever we can do to have more people dying than moving in/being born. Yeah, it's messy and seems immoral, cold, uncaring, etc., but resources aren't unlimited, population growth shouldn't be either.
 
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Fück it. Dropping this in here. Been wanting to see what HROT dipshits thought about this….

👍👍👍

She is absolutely right. Unfortunately, in a capitalistic society, there is really no way to transform existing companies to her model. It will take NEW companies that are privately owned, and the owners have her mindset.

BTW - who is that?
 
Our firm CEO was interviewed and essentially said that management doesn’t having any leverage right now, but if there is a recession and firms start cutting jobs you are going to see a lot of people returning to the office.

I think this is probably right. Right now, associates have some good leverage.

I’m working 4 in the office; 1 at home and I like it. The home day allows me to do a lot of small tasks while waiting for call backs or responses to emails - take deliveries, laundry, load the dishwasher, etc.

The in office allows me to meet with my associates and trial teams and move the ball forward. It’s a good split in my view.
 
I much prefer working in the office. I like keeping my home and work life as separate as possible.

Personally, I think those of you clamoring to have your work be part of your daily home life are nucking futs.

I get an hour and a half of my life back from avoiding the commute. As someone who used to commute from the Pizza Mecca of the World to Iowa City, I'd think you could appreciate that.

Other benefits: shorts, flip flops and a t shirt in the summer, sweats, slippers and a t shirt in the winter. "Breaks" are much more enjoyable and provide much more utility.

I can certainly appreciate certain home situations and other specific contexts where working from an office is preferable to home. However, I think those of you who don't understand the "clamoring" are nucking futs.
 
I agree. Associates practically demanding flex WFH or voting with their feet.
It depends on the industry, but for mine - auditing/consulting, the associates wanting to work solely from home are setting themselves up to be good worker bees, but WAY behind on networking, teambuilding, leadership, business development -all the things that will help you rise up to the higher levels of the organization.

I have a mentee that was hired to be out of my local office - Tyson's Corner, VA, but because of covid he never moved down here. He still lives in NJ. As people are starting to come back to the office more and hang out with each other, he's at a competitive disadvantage. It's not counting against him at this point, because there's still a lot of discretion/flexibility, but it's also not counting for him and his career development.
 
It depends on the industry, but for mine - auditing/consulting, the associates wanting to work solely from home are setting themselves up to be good worker bees, but WAY behind on networking, teambuilding, leadership, business development -all the things that will help you rise up to the higher levels of the organization.

I have a mentee that was hired to be out of my local office - Tyson's Corner, VA, but because of covid he never moved down here. He still lives in NJ. As people are starting to come back to the office more and hang out with each other, he's at a competitive disadvantage. It's not counting against him at this point, because there's still a lot of discretion/flexibility, but it's also not counting for him and his career development.

Nice post. Yep.

The partners are not at a disadvantage, because they have the contacts and have made it to that level. I do worry about associates not connecting with others, and not getting enough oversight.

I think they can handle a couple year bump in the road, but if this goes a couple more years, it may turn into a real problem.
 
I much prefer working in the office. I like keeping my home and work life as separate as possible.

Personally, I think those of you clamoring to have your work be part of your daily home life are nucking futs.
Perhaps in Iowa you are correct. Working from home has allowed me to reclaim 2hrs 45 mins a day in commuting time. I sometimes miss going into NYC daily (I live about 15 miles out in NJ), but when I think about all that time I've reclaimed, it's a no brainer to never go back to the daily slog.
 
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Working in the office furniture industry I want all you sheep to get back to the cubicle farm ASAP! It's really crazy because a lot of companies remodeled their offices when Covid first hit, they thought since everyone is going to be out for a few months we might as well do our renovations now.

So they now have these brand new offices that they sunk millions of dollars into and nobody to fill the seats. Some employers are making them come back just for this reason.
FWIW, my work is about to order a crap ton of office furniture from Steelcase.
 
I'm reading all the positives being related here for working from home and I'm not seeing anything that benefits the employer...
 
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My employer is old school but I agree.

the future is remote, flex, four day work week.

basically get it done and be done.

not sure how that works for some jobs like developers where there is a never ending backlog but nonetheless it’s the future.

we had somebody leave after a few months that said “ being required to come to work at a set time and set number of hours wasn’t something they could deal with “. 10-15 years ago this would have been laughed at by everybody, now it’s common.
 
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Nice post. Yep.

The partners are not at a disadvantage, because they have the contacts and have made it to that level. I do worry about associates not connecting with others, and not getting enough oversight.

I think they can handle a couple year bump in the road, but if this goes a couple more years, it may turn into a real problem.
I agree - I think it affects them as associates, and maybe even sr associates, far less than it will when they start wanting to be promoted beyond that, and they start to realize they don't know anyone outside of the projects they directly worked on.
 
We started back may 1st. One of the admins has been complaining that she has to hire a sitter for 3 days a week now. This is the lady that always has her 2 year old screaming in the background on calls.

One of the other admin said it’s bullshit because she can’t work her other job while she. Is here.
 
I'm reading all the positives being related here for working from home and I'm not seeing anything that benefits the employer...

Reduce footprint to save on rent would be the big obvious one. That would also include savings on all the other things that come with reduced footprint: fewer desks/chairs/phones/office supplies.

Then there's the company by company benefits like productivity and satisfied workforce.
 
I'm reading all the positives being related here for working from home and I'm not seeing anything that benefits the employer...
The benefit is having employees, lol. If you can’t retain high quality employees, you’re fvcked. Believe me, I know.
 
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I get an hour and a half of my life back from avoiding the commute. As someone who used to commute from the Pizza Mecca of the World to Iowa City, I'd think you could appreciate that.

Other benefits: shorts, flip flops and a t shirt in the summer, sweats, slippers and a t shirt in the winter. "Breaks" are much more enjoyable and provide much more utility.

I can certainly appreciate certain home situations and other specific contexts where working from an office is preferable to home. However, I think those of you who don't understand the "clamoring" are nucking futs.
I think I'm just a weirdo. Believe it or not, I MISS my commute! I listen to less podcasts and audio-books now and feel dumber for it. I also enjoyed the 50 minutes of decompression time on the drive home, which allowed me to leave work stress and issues AT WORK and not bring them home.

That said, I totally support and encourage flex time. Yesterday, I had contractors finishing up some work (my new bar is in!!) and so I worked from home all morning and only attended a couple afternoon meetings in person. I'd be very happy with a 4/1 or 3/2 "work/home" ratio schedule too. But during the bulk of the pandemic it was ZERO office and 5-days-a-week from home and I thought that sucked bigly.

Flexibility is the key. Like in most things, a binary/black and white solution is probably not the best. Work from home when you need/want to and work in the office when you need/want to. As long as the work is getting done at a quality level, it shouldn't really matter.
 
I love the analogy of a "growth" inside our body to the idea of unlimited growth within the world's limited resources.
You make the mistake that Rudolph does of conflating finite available resources with finite value.
Economic growth means creating more value, which doesn’t necessitate more ‘stuff’.
Take the device you’re reading this post with.
Reduce it to the elements it is composed of and separate them into the little piles of grit they would be. What value does a tiny amount of silicon, copper, etc have to you by themselves? I would think very little.
But when you apply mankind’s creative power and labor to those elements they can be turned into something more valuable. The idea that there is a limit to how much value can be created with that grit ultimately rests on the idea that there is a limit to human creativity.


However, she's calling for global cooperation and that's Just. Not. Happening.
Happens all the time. We call it the market, and it is driven by cooperation we call trade.
 
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I think I'm just a weirdo. Believe it or not, I MISS my commute! I listen to less podcasts and audio-books now and feel dumber for it. I also enjoyed the 50 minutes of decompression time on the drive home, which allowed me to leave work stress and issues AT WORK and not bring them home.
You could listen to the same podcasts, while enjoying a walk. Healthier option with less expense and pollution.
You still have the time, now you have the freedom to use it different ways.
 
They money employers make off of their employees is their benefit.
This. Offices are expensive as hell. Any way to offload that on someone else is worth a shitload of $$ assuming you’re running a company that can handle some physical separation.
 
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