In my very specific case, the savings in gas and time due to not having to commute are worth it. Plus, my company actually gave everyone a stipend at the beginning of the pandemic to upgrade the work area at home (ergo desk and chair, monitor, mouse, keyboard, upgraded internet, etc.), so now my home setup is way sweeter than what I get in those rare days when I actually need to be in the office.
During my peak working years, working from home wouldn’t have worked really well. I wouldn’t have gotten those ships in our guest room. Then the neighbours wouldn’t have liked the hammering or welding. Later on I was doing maintenance on jet planes. Taxiing those 747s up the driveway to replace an engine could really piss the neighbours off. Just couldn’t imagine sitting on my arse all day pushing papers.
This has always been my position. Also, it is just assumed that people have a suitable place (I had a good size storage room converted into an office after my first year here, at my own expense) and are fine footing the bill for the electricity, heat and Internet. The Internet is the big thing by me, as my home Internet is pretty spotty. And, this, is the counter position. When I was in Chicago and my 7.5 miles drive would take 45-90 minutes each way, I agreed. When the Pandemic hit and I thought about it that I was "losing" upwards to three hours a day (uncompensated) and had been doing that for the better part of two decades, not to mention gas, maintenance on the cars, etc., the loss of productivity balanced out quite a bit. Also, my parking spot in Chicago was $285.00 a month, but that was reimbursed, as I had to drive 2-3 days a week for work (except in December and January). My new commute is 10 miles, but only 9 minutes. I receive no consideration from my current employer, even though we are encouraged to work remotely. About half of the faculty in my department gave up their cubicles (we don't have individual offices, another incentive to work remotely, I imagine) and they moved entirely remotely.
I hate working from home. I am wildly unproductive at home. And I have a nice den, but it's not mine alone: bills are on the hutch and half the drawers belong to the wife. Like bigred, I have a nothing commute. Half my working life my commute has been about 5 minutes (the other half was about 22 minutes, but traffic was never an issue) and yeah, I chose to live in a pipsqueak little town precisely so I wouldn't have to spend any time driving. I have always had reasonable colleagues and then I treat them well, so work is... pleasant. I've never heard much convo about TV or sports at any office I've ever been in, so we're mostly talking about work and the people we serve. So much easier to just walk into the next office to talk to Ali if I have a question, rather than figure out what text chain, slack channel, or email we had previously conversed on. And yet, our CEO is old school and wants people in the office, but my position during the pandemic was reclassified to a field position for funding purposes, and I'm practically banned from the office. So the big boss has people coming from 40 miles away to occupy an office they don't want to be in while I'm stuck at home. Fvcking maddening.
I will never go back to an office. The only thing I miss is the ability to tell my wife I was at the office when I was actually playing hooky on a ski slope.
When I worked at Autodesk a long time ago they allowed you to work from home whenever you wanted unless there was a particular need to be in, like a meeting. I tried it twice and I felt like you do. I wanted to look into it again during the peak of the pandemic, but my boss wasn't keen on my check-groceries-from-home idea.
You are in the wrong thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/i...neither-tweets.2121481/page-222#post-41144471
Re reading early posts from this thread is interesting in light of what is now known... Just saying...
Last time he came over, my pest control guy told me that when he started out on his own, he worked insane hours 3wks per month and took the whole last week off, but didn't tell his wife.
Work From Home (WFH) has taught me: I am better at managing my time than I imagined when the lockdown/WFH started. 30 minutes is not nearly enough time if you have to walk a dog AND eat. My wife is under the impression that WFH means I can run errands at 3pm. I am still trying to curb this idea One neighbor leaf-blew his leaves this autumn across the street into the neighbor's yard sidewalk/front yard/side of the street. Another neighbor consistently parks his work truck in front of another neighbor's house, occasionally blocking their mailbox. The number of people who do not pick up after their dog is depressing. Most don't even bring waste bags. One neighbor uses a stick to fling his dog's waste into wooded areas or the curb. He looks like a golfer caught in a sand trap. When walking the trails in NoVa, most people don't really give way, opting to walk right down the middle. We live near an elementary school with a cut-through road between 2 major roads and the speed limit is 35. The amount of times I have seen a car doing 50, even with school zone flashing lights, makes me nervous.
I suspect the dog dropping thing is Covid-related (idiots got a dog and were too stupid to think through the consequences)... ...on a possibly related note, are people seeing banana peels discarded on sidewalks in noticeable numbers? I see that every day, and it's not limited to anyone street or even neighborhood.
My neighborhood has trails that link to other neighborhoods. One trail goes through a children's play area with a tennis court, basketball court, trash cans. I consistently see garbage bags, from people's houses, stuffed in those trash cans. It's the weirdest thing since the area is a bit detached from the neighborhood. Meaning the park is near but not as convenient as going to the backyard/garage/wherever your trash can is located
I like the hybrid model, but have no trouble working from home. Before my current full time position, I had my own consulting company for 13 years. Depending on my client, I would be onsite each day or not. For one client, I worked remotely at home for almost two years as my professional services teams were all over North America. I met with them at the start of projects and away we went! You have to be good at managing time and setting boundaries which I'm very good at. However, as a program manager, I need to develop relationships with my teams and business. It just works better in person. During COVID, I was fortunate in that I already worked at the company for five years and had developed the relationship. In the end, options are good and find what works for you.
In my neighborhood people throw their drive thru garbage out their car windows, banana peels are at least biodegradable.
IMO this is all why hybrid is best some people don’t want to work from home Some don’t have the facilities at home and then the opposite why not position for both? also there are a lot of people you simply can’t hire if you are in person.
As a runner, this is something that has come to irrationally annoy me. There is actually nowhere near enough decent physical infrastructure in most cities for people who want to keep fit - especially if you don't want to run amongst cars and have to stop for lights every 5 seconds, then you have to be on park tracks, and the people 'promenading' are just so annoying. I used to think it was overly officious to see signs that ask people to keep left or move off the trail when talking etc but this kind of awareness seems sadly lacking. especially dog walkers on their phones whose dog suddenly veers across in front of you, or at you with a line to trip you up There ought to be a lane for actually running!
This is how I see it. Especially for certain roles you will only get those people if you offer remote. Indeed many of them don't even live in the same country as me. One reason we closed our office in the 00s was top staff kept moving out of town, and we could only retain with remote offers e.g in a place like London, good luck with the idea people will be around for more than 2 years
As a runner, I see this a lot with dog owners. This is why I will not get a retractable leash for my dog. And the general lack of awareness is rampant. Far too often I have had people take up the entire trail. I have no idea how they do it, but I have seen a single person (no stroller, child in tow, or on a bike) take up a trail 8 ft in width. It's almost impressive if you weren't stepping around them.
I am hybrid now (3 days) after full WFH for COVID. I see zero value in commuting 40 mins each way to see people who mostly stay in their cubicles. And my boss is 600 miles away.