this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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There are a lot of news articles about "back to the office", but they recirculate the same bad ideas. Let's provide some new ideas for the media to circulate. It may also have the effect of making the office less terrible.

I would like my work computer to do Windows updates lightning quick in the office. It currently takes weeks, in or out of the office. Stopping in for a day makes no difference, so there is no point. Now, if there was a point, I would go in.

What would get you in the office?

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[–] [email protected] 191 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Honestly, a much much higher salary. There are lots of things I'm going to have to deal with if I were to go back to the office; namely heavy traffic, transportation expenses, added stress, clothes (I mean, I'd have to use office-appropriate clothes whereas nowadays I have to be presentable only when I have meetings), food, waking up and preparing earlier than usual (sometimes up to 3 hours earlier!) and getting home late which gives me less free time, etc.

They're going to have to offer a really lucrative salary for me to even consider returning to the office.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A higher salary would be of help to cover additional expeses related to coming to the office.

However, we also need a nice office to come to that needs to be as comfy as the one home.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You know what? I never even thought about that. I agree 100%. That's gonna be a tall order for companies, though. I mean, different people probably have different requirements to be comfortable.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's why the whole open office and/or cubicle farm office needs to die. Yes, it will take more investment, but go back to everyone actually having their own small office that they can make their own and make comfortable. This isn't hard.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Yep. This is the answer.

And by much higher, I mean on the order of 100% raise as in double my current salary. Even then it’s be a hard decision.

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[–] [email protected] 155 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

Nothing. Quality of life of working from home cannot be replicated. Or the office would have to be in my street, which is pretty unrealistic

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nothing for me also.

The flexibility to do things when you have a few minutes (like breaks) is worth a lot to me, it makes me more productive and less stressed about time management.

Plus I have cats and no other humans here so it’s a quiet, comfortable, loving environment, and no job can provide that for me.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Plus I have cats and no other humans here so it’s a quiet, comfortable, loving environment, and no job can provide that for me.

Looks like someone just needs some more team bonding activities and pizza parties with their team! Nothing builds a loving environment like a strong team!

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Absolutely nothing. No amount of money or threats or “perks”. I work in software and my entire career has been built on flexible, mostly-remote work; particularly creating & leading remote, geographically distributed teams. I get the best talent no matter where they are, and use tools like Slack to work seamlessly in real-time and asynchronously across many disparate time zones. This wasn’t some new thing for me when COVID hit, this is how I’ve operated for more than 20 years.

I don’t mind going places for specific purposes: visiting clients, classified/sensitive discussions that can’t be transmitted, on-site work (like installations, research, etc), or team-building events like lunches, dinners, etc… but under no circumstances will I waste my time commuting to some specific ”office” daily just because. I am an efficiency expert and I will not tolerate having my time or my teams time wasted by incompetent, out-of-touch multi-millionaires that don’t realize the 80s ended 30 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

I agree 1,000%. I have been remote for the last five-ish years; I can count the amount of times I've actually needed to go into an office on one hand. At home I have: a giant ultrawide monitor; a quiet, private, office; gigabit internet; dog. How would I be more productive commuting to an office to listen to sales people banging gongs and ringing bells all day while I work in a cubicle on a single 19" monitor? All my teammates are in other cities and states, my code is checked into GitHub and mostly deployed to IaaS - and even our "on-prem" infrastructure is in another state.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Absolutely nothing. I don’t think even money could do it for me at this point. Aside from all the obvious reasons to hate commuting and then sitting for 8 hours doing maybe 2 hours of work, I have never been healthier.

I have chronic migraines. Well, I used to(?). I haven’t had a single bad migraine in years. Yeah, I’ve still had a couple in the last few years, but they didn’t put functioning at a complete standstill. I wasn’t stuck in bed, hoping for death. The lack of artificial light is a big deal. The not having to stress myself out by commuting, then being stuck there is also another

On top of that, I eat 1000% better, easier. I can exercise instead of commuting. There’s literally no benefit to working in an office for me, but it has a metric fuckton of drawbacks.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A couple of things:

  • commute time counts as work time
  • no open plan landscape office
  • no 'clean desk' policy but the ability to personalise your workplace
  • dishwasher and general kitchen stuff not being a 'shared responsibility' but someone's job.
  • office being in a nice neighborhood with fun things to do after work or during lunch

My employer spent the past ~10 years de-personalising our offices, and now they wonder why people don't like to hang out in their sterile 'clean' building.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago

32 hr work week, a dedicated office with a door and all my Mac peripherals, a big pay increase, and benefits to cover child care.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The office being within a 30 second walk of my home

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

Also no one else being there.

Also being in my home.

Also getting to work in pants.

So I guess nothing, then 👌

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Free or affordable, clean, safe public transit that takes me no more than 20 minutes from the time I set foot out my front door to setting foot in the office, and a team/company that doesn't care if I decide to work the day remotely for any reason whatsoever. I also like the other guy's comment about the workplace being a nice, inviting place to be since my cube is barren and probably 20+ years old.

Also the rest of y'all need to stay home when you get sick instead of bringing that shit into the office.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a minimum? Pay me for the commute. I'm only doing it because of management so they should compensate me.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Compensation for the time and cost of commuting back and forth, paid meal, free coffee and snacks, and additional sick days from using public transport and ultimately catching more sicknesses.

And even then, it doesn't give me back the extra time I can spend with my kids.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

A valid reason for a start.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Paid commute (time and expenses) and free lunch.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • 50% raise
  • Private 12x15 office
  • Free pot gummies (for Fridays, of course;)
  • Free transportation to/from office
  • Every day is Bring Your Dogs To Work Day
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

An immense raise, free mass transit to the office and a free hot lunch every day would be the beginning of negotiations

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Paid commute and a separate room.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

A hell of a lot of it.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Double my salary and we'll talk. Include my travel time in my working hours or I'll do it anyway.

But also I took a fully remote position to not have to deal with the return to office stuff so realistically nothing would get me back to an office.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

No. I went remote 11 years ago. I have no intention of going back to an office ever again.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They'd have to pay for quite a few things...

  • Housing near the office (I'm literally in another country lol)
  • Uber rides to/from
  • Food at the office
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

3x base salary at least. No-thought commute, so maybe provide transportation for me. I currently live what is about 1.5hrs away each way now and there isn't a public transportation option.

Commute time should count towards my "8 hour work day". No distracting desk drive bys. Provided breakfast and lunch or an optional lunch stipend or whatever to cover if I go somewhere near the office.

Not sounding great for the company? It isn't meant to. It would be nearly impossible to get me to go back to the office, as it should be.

I'm not being unreasonable. I am at least twice as productive since working from home and even simple internal reports can prove that. I'm also 2-3x happier and less stressed, nothing can really replace that.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If my whole team was based out of the same office and we coordinated the days we were there to have in person meetings. I don't see any reason to be 100% in the office, though 1-2 days a week in this scenario would be nice.

My team is spread out all over the place, so it makes no sense to go to the office just to be on WebEx the whole time anyways.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

If the commute was considered part of working hours, and i am able to commute outside of rush hours for a clear benefit in productivity.
For example: start work at 9, commute to work at 10, be at the office for useful meetings or other collaborative work, return home at 2, and finish up work for the day.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (4 children)

A shit-tonne more money. Like, more than the extra time spent travelling to and from work worth of salary.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Include my commute time in my 7 hours of work a day. I’m not driving out of my own love of it, I’m driving because you’re requiring me to be in the office so it should count as time on your clock, not mine.

Also pay for my parking at work, and my petrol to get there and back.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

An office in my city and within 10-15 minutes walking distance.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Nothing. I would need to be compensated for my commute and honestly I would need a driver so I could work on the commute. And the salary I would need to justify working in an office I'm just not worth.

So any company willing to meet me here clearly has bad management so I don't want to work for them anyway.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Short answer: Nothing

Long answer: Actually, nothing

Before the pandemic, I was already remote working because all I did was connect my computer to servers in a warehouse 20 kilometers away from the office I had to be at.

Now, every person in my department is literally hundreds of kilometers away from each other, and we MUST go to each office to do the same things we could do staying at home. I lose 3 hours daily (waking up early, preparing meals, going to the office, and returning...) because of this nonsense.

Also, the building I have to go to doesn't belong to my employer. The contract ends this year and, instead of sending us home again, my employer has rented another building that's FARTHER than the current one. We're pretty sure this is just money laundering or the building belongs to a friend.

People are leaving for remote jobs, and our bosses are still wondering why.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

A few things that would help:

A 4 day work week with both ends of the day brought in to maybe 10-4 (sorry didnt mean 10-3). Things like going to the bank require me to either run during my lunch break or do it on a day off. 4x10-4 means i have a day and edges of days to do tasks i can't do on the weekend.

Unlimited PTO. If my tasks are done and I'm paid a salary there is no reason i need to sit around doing nothing. If more work is expected then I'd expect more compensation.

And lastly mandatory cost of living connected to inflation every year. My last job started during the pandemic. In 2 years the effective inflation rate was 15% and yet i was only given 3% over that time while getting good marks on my reviews. That means in that time i was paid a crazy amount less my last day than my first. I dont care about the actual number of dollars I'm paid but I'd like to buy the same number of eggs mext year as this year if I'm expected to do the same amount of work. This shouldn't be thought of as a bonus, but rather keeping my level of compensation matched woth my level of expectations for my job.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Time. Can't spend 3 hours a day commuting to work.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (6 children)

To bring another opinion to all the other comments, each week I'm trying to go into the office more often than I already do (2-3/5 times per week currently) which I feel is not much, but after reading some comments, you guys must think I'm a maniac already lol.

Now why would someone do that? First, I got a new job like half a year ago and I absolutely love it. First of all, my current commute time is around 25 minutes, door to door, in clean public transportation. Second, we got free water, Softdrinks, Coffee, Snacks, even fruits and cereal in the office. So no matter what I need to energize, it's there. At home, I usually don't. Or I do, but still, it's better to have 'free' you know?

Also, I love my colleagues. They're very young on average, incredibly skilled and highly intelligent. Also from many different countries. It's always fun talking to them and getting different insights on all kinds of things. We also usually take smaller breaks to play table tennis or table football.

Home office is great too, for days I really need to focus or have a lot of meetings. Or have private appointments, deliveries, or whatever. I can also take Homeoffice whenever I want and no one cares at all.

But still, it gets boring and lonely. Being in the office is great for my social factor and currently feels more like going to see friends, rather than working.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Teleporter. (I hate commutes.)

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago
  • More money
  • A very short commute (like 10-15 minutes walking max)
  • A shorter working day, like 6 hours.
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Nothing. I refuse to go back.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I moved during the pandemic when we were all remote. But let's pretend I went back to the office near where I used to live.

I would expect it to be an inviting, colorful environment. Put effort into decorating . Give me an office with windows, and a door. Not a gray cube and off-white walls that feels like I'm going to die in it. Other incentives like a guaranteed parking spot would be fantastic. Maybe provide lunch. I think Google at least used to provide a great office environment.

I would also want more money because transportation is very expensive now. And it takes time. That's less time with my kids and to handle chores properly. Often cost saving chores.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

They are offering me a ~40% raise to be in a 50/50 system and I'm considering taking it so... Apparently, that.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

A gun held to my head?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
  1. Reliable, fast and comfortable public transport.
  2. Private room or at least a semi private room so that I can get work done without disturbances.
  3. Increased salary to compensate for my lost time due to commuting.
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As a small business owner: nothing. My employees have been extremely productive being able to work from home. We already drive more than the average job. Driving to the office just watses time and money for everyone. We use our office now for storage more than anything else.

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