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I don't get it, apart from companies wanting to cover their corporate real estate investments.
All of my work is on a computer
All of my colleagues' work is on computer.
So why the fuck would I want to meet in person to address a problem? So one of us can literally breathe down the other's neck looking at the same screen?
GTFO.
You just said it in your first sentence. It's not rocket surgery, your literal meat existence will be used for passive profit.
Oh, I'm aware, but the corporate bull shit they push to sell us on it is insulting to our collective intelligence.
For their greedy brains, this is literally about control and surveillance. They can't make sure that you are working the full company time and even overtime while at home in your comfort and pyjamas.
Correct - not that their big-brother asses would be caught dead in areas where the employees work. They just want to feel like people are there. It's enough to bring in a cardboard cut-out.
What's wild about that is that I am working outside business hours when I wfh. I'm showing up earlier, staying later, doing little quick things when i think of them rather than putting them off until the next day in the office, and I'm taking a lot less PTO because there's a pretty wide gulf between "too sick to get fully dressed, drive for 45 minutes and face actual human beings in person" and "too sick to accomplish anything if I'm left alone and allowed to take breaks when i need them". But you're right, there is a certain school of management that teaches that employees are an enemy who want nothing more than to steal from the company by being paid to do nothing, that a manager's primary job is to catch and punish these slackers, and that a lack of evidence of employees slacking off is proof that they're lazy and smart enough to hide it. Fortunately for me I now have a boss who knows that I do this work because I like it and that the team and the work will benefit most from me being left alone to do it and occasionally helped with blockers as they come up.
They are paying those investments prices if people are in the office or not. At least if people are WFH and used to it, you can downsize your office if and when the need arises.
Or the lease expires.
Exactly much of my argument for WFH
When I worked for Bell, they had just ended their WFH policy. I was required to be in the office every day. The rest of my team was still under the policy according to their contract, including my boss who was a 10 minute walk from the office, so they all worked from home. And most of my meetings involved teams in 3 different cities, not to mention the fact that it was Bell, so all meetings were over the phone with a screen sharing app. There were some other people that worked in the office, but they worked with different teams so I didn't interact with them beyond saying "hi" in the break room as I was getting coffee. But it was apparently very important that I be in the office.
Some days I really appreciate the fact that I left IT.
Fuck Bell
Could also be laying off people without doing “layoffs”. Not everybody is going to return to the office, problem solved.
What did you leave it for?
Got laid off from Bell and couldn't find another IT job before EI ran out, so I applied to be a mail carrier. Been doing that ever since. I did apply to a few IT jobs after I started doing mail, but it wasn't long that I realized I could make more where I was and I really didn't miss It all that much. It's a little frustrating when I hit bugs in the software we use, because I could write the bug report in full detail but I have no access to submit it. But then I get done at 1pm on a Friday and I remember why I left that world.
The company I work at has a couple of buildings spread out over a larger campus. Before COVID, you'd just go over to the other building for meetings. Now nobody can be arsed to walk across any more. But we still have to come in because face to face communication is sooo important!
Mine is exactly the same! :/
Teams room technician here. Just wanna say= fuck teams. For the love of god, use any implementation of video conferencing besides teams.
One small detail that encapsulates all that's wrong with teams= the software that runs the room-scale experience frequently refers to itself as 'skype for business', even in current, official documentation from Microsoft. Hell, the (well known) default password for the system is the acronym 'sfb'.
Please. If you're spec'ing new software for video conferencing, use anything but teams.
also it crashes my audio driver on windows 11 regularly, so fucking annoying....
only teams manages to do that... somehow
Oh! I always thought that password was short for “Sam Fankman-Bried”
WebEx room systems are great, easy to configure and great service to use, great for ver large conferences (think 1000-5000 or more) and it integrates with Teams meetings as well. That said, Zoom integration is terrible, they need to work on advanced conferencing features such as translator audio channels, echo and noise canceling is utter trash for the app, breakout rooms limited list goes on.
We were "encouraged" by our CEO to go back to office and "collaborate". So my rule is now 2 days per week in the office (sometimes 1, sometimes 3, I'm flexible), but when I'm there, no calls/meetinga as much as possible. I'm socialising, shooting the shit, drinking coffee, playing ping pong with my peers. Realistically this works about half thr time, the other half we are organically ending up doing some work, discussing that thing we always wanted to but it never fits in a formal meeting slot, coming up with ideas how to solve a problem we didn't even realise we had until it came up during coffe or smth... At the beginning my boss complained a bit and I just told him I'm collaborating. He let it go!
So, BTO has a (limited) point, there is value to be there in person sometimes...
I'm a strong advocate for this.
There's no point of "everybody together in the office" if we're too busy in Teams meetings or have to focus on individual tasks. The real benefit is when we have days with open calendars and we can discuss stuff and come up with ideas.
This is why hybrid is a dumb idea unless everyone in the meeting is in the office on the same day.
My office has hybrid with the same two in office days for everyone, and it is great for communication that works in person and then we get all the work done the other three days without office distractions.
If the days weren't consistent it would be pointless.
In some cases, being in at the same time doesn’t matter because people can’t get of their ass and walk across the street, or sometimes even down the hall!
Source: The environment I work in does exactly this.
The primary issue in this is that for years, both organizations and people have accepted that inside the office is the way that work has always been conducted (not true, by the way), that working in the office is an fundamental, unchangeable human nature and the only way which work can be done, and all attention to keep people happy at work is to iteratively improve by putting foosball table and catered lunches in the office.
So, when COVID showed that working from home is possible, even more efficient at times, against the perceived human nature to show that change can happen and the office isn't even NEEDED, the cynicism kicked in: to admit that work from home regularly is even possible would be to admit that the previous system was fundamentally wrong, and that having a giant office at all is ultimately a waste of money, which is why they are so desperate to revert and remove work from home to somehow justify paying for an office for all these years and that things can never change for the better, ever, and the broken system was to be always accepted.
It's a form of expression of despair, and despair often isn't logical.
Isn't this the sunk cost fallacy?
For the unitiated: https://yourbias.is/the-sunk-cost-fallacy
The summary version is that you've spent so much time and money on something that you keep it around because you've spent so much time and money on it.
It is! But I also think the reason is more than just the sunken cost fallacy.
Bank I quit working for 6 months ago did this. During the pandoodle our team was allowed to build itself as though WFH was permanent. Then someone in c-suite realized that the bank owned all the parking garages next to the offices they had all over the country, and that they were missing out on about $12/employee/day, so they started pressuring us to come in. Trouble is, some of our team was in Pittsburgh, some in Cleveland, some in Dallas, some in LA, and at least one we couldn't prove but strongly suspected had his US work permission but was actually working from his family farm in Mexico. So we went from being comfortable in our homes with no commute and doing all of our meetings via teleconferencing to being uncomfortable, having anywhere from a 30 to 90 minute commute depending on which team member you talk to, and still only being able to meet online.
Zoom > Google meet > teams > in person meetings
Sending a fucking email > any kind of meeting
If people read emails, they are great.
Most things are fine by email, unless they lead to questions. A few people on a zoom/teams to discuss a complex problem followed by an email summarizing the decision is great. Anything larger than a few people by zoom/teams that involves discussion is a train wreck, but they are good for large groups watching a live presentation that includes active Q&A.
Everyone in a zoom/teams with a shitty facilitator are great for appearing to be busy for an hour or two while doing something else.
Fucking hate Teams.
I fucking hate in person meetings more
It's getting better. A couple years ago it was a hot mess. I do still have to manually kill the app and restart it if my VPN acts up, though.
I didn't have one less Zoom call in the office vs WFH.
Muh water cooler
Some days, I want a change of environment. I'm not completely against going back to the office but it should be voluntary.
You can change your own environment?
I'm built different
It's harder to oppress you if you aren't actually there
The whisper voice is a thing now since people are going back to their capitalist-dystopian, employer friendly open floor offices.
We missed them so fucking much!
I still remember several months into the pandemic how my then-company's VP brought up how we can go back into the office, but we wouldn't be able to meet in the same room or be in close proximity to each other, and so any/all communications would still need to be done via MS Teams.
I think even he realized how ridiculous that sounded because there was a momentary pause before he finished his sentence.
Hey, the failing precast company I used to work for did this. The plant manager also was having weekly meetings with the office workers so he could read to them from Paul Aker's most recent word vomit on "Lean" as if they were 2nd graders.
I believe business need to adopt a hybrid approach. There are just aspects of human interaction you can't do with teams. I'd you job has your working on a team meeting in person once or twice a week makes a difference.