Thanks Biden ya fuckin loser: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/07/1196787623/federal-workers-remote-office-ordered-taxpayers-telework-science
Meanwhile, my lead, who insists I drive 40km which takes 70 minutes one way:
“I can’t do teams meetings for design discussions, I don’t like drawing with my mouse”
Me: “OK, get a Wacom tablet or wtv and draw with that?”
Him: “No, just come to the office” for our 5 min talks we have occasionally and the once every two weeks 1 hr discussion
I read this has: " I have an irrational need to be in the same room as you, here is a plausible excuse to justify it"
Then you replied with: “here is a reasonable solution to the excuse you gave me so that we can all work better”
And then it went down hill.
There’s like a $10 app called super display that will turn any android device into a touch monitor, pair that with one of those precision styluses with the plastic disc on the end, you got a ~$20 dollar drawing tablet!
Nice! I would have imagined there was some app to allow freehand drawing on phones, so thanks for the info!
Hint: it isn’t about the Drawing.
Yeah exactly, so strip the layers from this bullshit onion and don’t let him have any excuses.
If only they could somehow have a webcam point at their desk to show you what they’re drawing
😂
Well, having the office was nice because I like my colleagues. I’m lucky in that regard though, and as nice as it was to socialise at work, working from home is nicer. Not to mention much much cheaper by every metric. In conclusion fuck ever going back to the office, thank you for coming to my TEDx Talk.
I personally like it too, but not daily. I average 1-2 days in office now and it’s healthy for me. See my coworkers, they know my name, we catch up, have our meetings, then I go home for a few days again. I’ve just learned everyone is different, and the company definitely shouldn’t be telling people how to work, people are grownups and can decide themselves. (And if they can’t, then fire them instead of punishing everyone).
However for this meme, another great way to get people off the roads would be… trains
Some people don’t have the space at home to set up a working area and really want to just go to an office that their employer pays for, and that’s fine.
This is why coworking spaces exist.
I don’t know in other countries but it is working quite well in France, you can get a subscription to the closest working space and have a desk, meeting rooms … To work remotely.
I like that it gives a separation between home and work but without long commute.
This, and I do a lot of gaming on my pc, have a nice setup etc, usually not great trying to work there (don’t have space for another desk and can’t really justify having two sets of monitors, keyboard etc
Why do you need all that? I have my work laptop sitting at the back of my desk. Most monitors have two inputs. I’ve got an older 1080 with HMDI+DVI and a newer 1440p with DP/2xHDMI.
So I have the laptop in HDMI on both screens (it needed a USBC to HDMI cable for one of the outputs), and a simple USB3 switch for the mouse+keyboard.
So when I’m working I fire up the laptop, switch the USB over to that and swap the screens to the HDMI inputs. When I’m done working I can fire up the desktop, swap inputs and USB and in seconds I’m switched over.
I’ve been doing it this way for years and years now.
That’s normally what I do, the problem is the context for me, I sometimes prefer just sitting across the room with a laptop so I’m in a slightly different environment
It can help draw a line I’d agree, but I’ve gotten used to it now I think. I used to have it worse. I operated out of the bedroom for the first few years I was remote and that wasn’t good at all. The new house had a bedroom that was really too small to be a bedroom. So it became an office room.
I like trains.
I like freight trains, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere that commuter trains would make sense.
Why in the world not? I specifically moved to be close to mine, I hate driving for my commute
Passenger trains can only operate efficiently in areas of extremely high population density. If I’m living somewhere serviced by trains, then everywhere I go, I’ll be in a crowd.
I’m enough of an introvert that this sounds like an extraordinarily uncomfortable proposition. I’d need an exorbitant financial benefit to even consider it, and that’s not going to happen. Instead, I’m expected to pay a very high premium for the “privilege” of being miserable everywhere I go.
No thanks, I’ll stay out here in the sticks.
You’re absolutely spot on, and it’s evidenced by house prices here in the UK where they’re next to or near a rail line.
They are noisy fuggers and people do not like living by them.
Unless you are near a train stop when it skyrockets
Small towns built around a train station are absolutely lovely though
I suspect those are mostly outposts. Rail junctions. Water stops for the old steam trains. Remote mining towns. Places that either provided services to railway operation, or primarily needed freight service rather than passenger.
And I agree: I would love to live in a small railroad town. But I would move out long before that town had enough people to justify commuter rail service.
Ah, no in europe where I live is fairly normal for rail service to small villages even.
Unnecessary RTO should be outlawed
The worst part of it is most big companies are forcing RTO to either justify the leases they don’t want to pay to break, or to satisfy tax incentives agreements they made with municipalities.
In both cases, they’re deciding it’s better if you pay - in time, gas, car maintenance, mental health, productivity, and stress - for their business decisions that went bad instead of paying money out of their own bloated pockets.
I don’t have the kind of job that can be done remotely, but I’m all for remote work where it’s possible and desired. My best friend hated working from home at the height of covid because he’s an extrovert who can’t really afford to go out much. Now he works from home Mondays and Fridays and I think it’s kinda the best of both worlds for him. I think that employers that already have office space for workers that could effectively do their job from home should give workers a choice. Maybe hybrid workers have required scheduled days in the office just to make sure they’re there to attend necessary meetings or collaborations or whatever rather than it just be them coming in when they feel like it, but the technology has caught up to allow way more flexibility than ever before. If I had a 100% desk job, I would move somewhere cheaper and never come in. I know I’m not alone there, and I think there’s no reason to hold that option hostage. Covid proved that it could be done for most white collar work, and we can’t let them try to squeeze that Pandora back into its box.
If unions and OSHA really had teeth, they’d point out the significant health risks of having workers commute to work versus work from home. In terms of lives saved, work from home is much safer and we should fine companies accordingly when they force workers to commute when instead they could simply work from home. They should also be fined for environmental impact as well :)
2802 - 7006 lives saved every year if wfh was allowed partially or all the way.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/remote-work-literally-saves-lives-peter-watridge
Majority of the wealthy higher ups in corporate management don’t care about reducing emissions. They care about making their companies look good.
Talking about working towards climate change goals or talking about supporting marginalized groups is easy. Actually doing something is a lot different, but even today very few people look for actions.
Changing policy is actually pretty easy. Sure there are probably laws and regulations that need to be taken into account, but employing the right people to look into it can save huge amounts off their budget after only a few months. To me it shows poor leadership at the top that they dont.
It’s not entirely true though. It is a lot of work. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done, but often times unless you can incentivize it then they won’t.
Even then, many companies find ways around it, such as dealing with carbon credits, which basically allow them to continue harming the environment for a cost, because apparently it’s still cheaper that way.
Big business has shown its power in that very way with the carbon credits. This proves they have the power and the manpower to implement actual positive environmental change.
I worry that the widespread acceptance of work from home without any other societal changes will increase the level of loneliness. It’s a solution that has to come packaged with other quality of life enhancements or social trust is going into an even faster free fall. I wonder what a wfh/social solution would look like.
Edit: I’m not advocating for the office, I just think people like me wouldn’t do very well without other changes, and I think there are more people who don’t know how to make adult friends than we think. I’m not even an introvert, I just don’t go to any place often enough to make friends from it.
I have only ever had stressful social interaction at work, except for my current job where I’m generally the only one there and as long as I’m within budget whatever I say goes. That is to say the only non stressful job I have done is the one that is 99% just me with no other people and I only even need to be there because it’s physical work, the odd clerical thing is done from home on a phone work profile.
Don’t get me wrong I have certainly had my fair share of bad work interactions but most were benign and some became friends. Although I’m not advocating for the office, I just think people like me wouldn’t do very well without other changes, and I think there are more people who don’t know how to make adult friends than we think. I’m not even an introvert, I just don’t go to any place often enough to make friends from it
It’s going to result in the wholesale exportation of white collar jobs overseas. It’s already underway.
You have potentially two or more hours added to your day for socializing.
Get lunch nearby, go to the park, do stuff in the evening.
If you’re too isolated physically that speaks to urban sprawl and car dependency more than wfh imo
Fucking go outside and go to social gatherings
Most of the social gatherings I’ve been to have been set up with coworkers. Maybe I was conditioned by the American education system but I don’t think I’ve ever made a friend outside of a place that we both were expected to go to consistently. I’m not very familiar with constructs outside of that if I’m honest.
If your only social interactions are through work, you’ve got a problem already.
Yeah, I agree. That’s why I think loneliness would increase, being at work masks a pretty significant issue
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
In theory if you have a circle of friends already, then social should be better with WFH because when it is quitting time you are immediately done and have more evening for social gatherings. if you recently moved cities before WFH, not having colleages might cut down chances of finding new friend groups
I worked with the public. I was constantly stressed out and kept away from my coworkers I actually got along with. I always felt “alone in a crowd.”
I’d lie if I said thoughts of self-termination never crossed my mind. Only one or two of those coworkers actually kept up with me when I left, too.
I get a little lonely at home now, but I’m with people I love, and I make time to talk to people by choice.
Quality over quantity, I’d say.
I’ve been working from home for over 15 years now. One thing I do not miss is the “social” aspect of the office.
That’s fair, my coworkers are really the only people I talk to. I don’t know how to make friends as an adult honestly. I don’t think I’m the only one in this boat
That’s an issue, but it’s not an issue for your job to solve for you, especially not when “solving” it would negatively impact the rest of the coworkers who prefer the benefits of WFH.
The most common advice I’ve seen about stuff like that is to get involved in hobbies that have clubs or groups that meet in your free time. You can try out new things or join a club about stuff you’re already interested in, and you’ll meet people doing stuff that you’re interested in and sometimes they can become your friends.
I save $7 per day working from home while I can listen to death metal.
I’d be fine with going into the office if public transportation could get me there, but it’s a 15 minute drive vs 1.5 hours on the bus. And when I go into the office I just put in headphones with a YouTube documentary and don’t talk to anyone. What’s the point?
But the company culture.
The culture:
What a depressing sight to behold
At least it’s empty
Better than an open office setting.
Which is better still than open office “Hot Desking”
Yep I know all about it. Shit sucks.
Them: I need you in the office so I can keep you under my finger!
Me: Bro do you know how much in rent and power you’re gonna save keeping them at home?
the only expenses businesses ever complain about are wages. they don’t seem to care how much is wasted elsewhere if they could save a few dollars cutting some shift workers allowance
Honestly I think we’re going to hit a wall where we realize we need about half as many “office drones” as we have in a couple years.
So many people with office jobs drive in, sit at a desk, and do maybe 2 hours of actual work in the entire day. Or they work from home and do the same. And then they collect their 95k/year salary.
I really dunno if people are prepared for businesses to start going “wait, what are all of these people doing?” And axing their workforce and replacing most of them with AI or existing other employees
The thing you’re not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what “office drones” are doing, aren’t productive in the same way that physical or service jobs are.
Looking off into space thinking is part of the work. People average about four hours of productive work in an eight hour day.The thing you can’t do is get rid of half the people and then expect the other half to magically be eight hours productive per day. Businesses keep trying and weirdly it just tanks their output.
AI is not the panacea that so many people think it is. Do you feel happy when you need help with something you bought and you get an AI trying to offer you helpful articles or tips? I don’t. Do you want the same level of service from the entity that controls where your paycheck gets deposited or fixed your HSA contributions?
If you definition of work is butts in chairs typing, office workers don’t do too much work. But that’s a very naive definition of what most office workers are actually doing.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much
Incredibly well said. I’m saving this.
The thing you’re not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what “office drones” are doing
Found the office drone.
Our office drones are not “thinking” for half the day like you, and input and manipulate data. You could also include half these “managers” too who sit in an office sending emails all day, and never hit the shop floor.
Experimental solution proposal:
-
Fire all management. They’re expensive and exponentially less productive. Their stupid large offices and pricey desks also waste space.
-
(Office) workers collectively do the thing they do without being micro managed and stuffed into pointless meetings.
-
???
-
Probably profit, actually. But then how would the “in-club” kids reap all the rewards without working? :( :( :(
I have direct experience with the management that only work days since I work continental hours, so get to see how we run during the night without them.
Like I said, half is probably a number we could run with at my place. Sorry state of affairs.
-
If it is so easy to be an office drone, why weren’t you able to get a job like that?
Is it maybe because it involves skills you aren’t aware of?
I once worked in an office doing what I described above.
I absolutely hated it stuck in a cubicle, and now work outside with lots of other people grafting, instead of listening to gossiping over the cubicles all day long. Think I lasted 2 months.
Given that office drone would cover any job that isn’t service, manufacturing or laborer, it’s not exactly surprising that you’d find one. I’m a software developer.
It’s almost always best to assume that other people’s jobs actually take some form of skill, because they always do. People get paid for a reason. Otherwise you fall into the trap of calling huge swaths of work “unskilled labor” and thinking they don’t deserve much pay, just because they’re just moving stuff around on the shop floor.
What do you think those emails the managers are sending are, if not work?
A software developer!? On Lemmy!? Say it ain’t so
The old; how do you know someone is a software developer? Yup, they tell ya!
I think I really touched a nerve with that guy though, and it seems like they want to be an office drone instead of working from home (this is the bit where the “senior software devs + team manager” argue they need to collaborate, in person) with a nice life balance.
I know exactly what those emails are because I have to deal with them asking me if a wagon that I’m looking at has arrived yet.
So I email them back telling them that it’s arrived (they knew that already because goods-in already updated the checking in sheet) and they get to validate their job somehow by asking me, shit.
It’s quite amazing how they keep their jobs.
So you can dismiss someone’s job because you, a person whose job it is to look at wagons, got an email you didn’t see the point of?
If they have the sheet, why do they need you to work there and look at the wagon at all?
Now, I know your job definitely has more to it than looking at wagons and confirming their existence.
My point is that the person who sent the email does too. It’s rare for a job to actually have no point and no work associated with it.Well, maybe your workplace wouldn’t put up with these people but I can confirm that besides them not being able to use SAP to check the quantity of a BOM, to like I said - they have access to the other functions / data but prefer to delegate them to others.
So it ends up going down a hierarchy until someone else does what these managers could do themselves in the first instance.
And they spend all their time forwarding these queries to people lower down the hierarchy and that’s all they do, eh?
You should probably get a new job if your company has that much dead weight and no direction.
You don’t understand though, because it’s not physical (software of any kind) and even if it is (any hardware) because you aren’t constantly doing something it’s not work!!
As an admin who got push back from the sales team, everyone has… Unique perspectives on what is and isn’t work.
or you could let everyone work half as many hours for the same pay, but sure why should anyone except business owners get to benefit 🙄
That would be hard to balance around all the people who actually do work 8-12 hours a day
None of my coworkers drive to the office and we actually like seeing each other… Hybrid remote work is great for us
I think 90% of the problem is people being forced to drive everywhere
Traffic would be so much better with a staggered work force. We might actually enjoy the commute.
Or if they actually cared, they could build trains.
Because of traffic, the workforce started staggering by themselves here if possible. The result was that bad traffic was spread out over the entire day instead of just two peaks in the morning and evening. Good traffic is only at night and working at night defeats the purpose of having business hours.
Basically just further proof that car traffic doesn’t scale well. It’s just an incredibly space inefficient way to get around.
Another factor is the spaces that offices take up or the power used whilst unoccupied, these space could be used for housing or maybe even industry.
Its great that no one drives to your work but this is more uncommon than common.
In conclusion: work from home is better.
Don’t forget giant slammed parking lots! :D
I like working from the office but I agree the rest of you all should wfh so I can have the roads and office building to myself.
