Working From Home
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@Dan54 said in Grumpy Old Man:
Listen fellas, I know I really am a grumpy old man etc, but surely if you get paid to do work and boss decides he wants you to do it in office, that would be end of argument??
Absolutely. Which is why a lot of people quit jobs when the market was good and the office conditions weren't to their liking.
Now that the market is leaner, people will think twice.
@Dan54 said in Grumpy Old Man:
She in Gov't agency here (police admin stuff) and I just get my head around fact that you can't have face to face meetings almost whenever needed with superiors etc!
One person in our chain of command is British. They've been working 6 weeks here and there in Ireland due to a sick relative and won't work Sydney hours.
THAT is taking the piss.
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@NTA said in Grumpy Old Man:
THAT is taking the piss.
Every single day of my working life, over the last decade - I think I'm taking the piss - for one reason or another. Then look at every other fluffybunnny - and realise they are fluffier bunnies than I could ever hope to be. But in other ways. They're just... ugh dumb. retards. Literally - not derogative.
I am a very fucking highly functioning alcoholic - but the fact that I'm being paid a similar wage to merely-functional-retards.... fucks me off. And makes me drink more. And the beautiful circle of life continues. -
Working in a MSP with teams spanning timezones everyfuckingwhere, it was obvious to me a bunch of the workforce was paid for presenteeism. Without which shit middle managers would feel powerless and be exposed as adding two-fifths of fuck all.
Now I've been working from home since Covid started. And have only recently started going to client sites occasionally because of the undeniable benefit of having impromptu discussions. All engineers WFH if they want.
To make this work requires smart people with good work ethics. Everyone else requires adult supervision and even then they'll skulk off and be unproductive.
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@Kiwiwomble said in Grumpy Old Man:
@NTA definitely some people, like your self, have found new levels of efficiency but ive also had people tell me they much prefer working from home because they can do laundry, and go for a run or the gym, look after kids during the day etc...their overall life efficiency might be up...but not much of it is work
They told us we could have work-life balance
It's the extra layers of getting ready and sitting in fucking traffic. No, I'm not going to use that extra time to do more work, but if I'm killing off my weekly tasks in 30 hours (or less) instead of 40 because it is quieter at home.
And if I have achieved that without having to put on long pants more than one day a week, everyone is winning because the employer is getting their money's worth, and I'm happier and more likely to stay.
I went down a rabbit hole on YouTube about "Bullshit Jobs". Some interesting stuff there.
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We're back in 4 days a week now and to be honest, I prefer it. Working from home when everyone was working from home was fine, and life around work was easier, but these days, lots of stuff happens between meetings, on the way to meetings, bumping into people. Its easier to have 2 minute conversations face to face than scheduling bloody calls as people's diaries are a nightmare and you can never find the right person at the right time if you're not in the office.
Also, going back 4 or 5 days means that the flexibilities you built into home life just simply aren't an option anymore therefore the stress of trying to / working out when you can be available to drop kids off etc has all gone away and family life has largely gone back to how it was before - everyone knows where they stand. Conscious my kids are a bit older now so they are up when i get home from work as opposed to pre covid when i was lucky to see them during the week so that's less of a problem too.
Overall, work is more fun with people in the office. If i was 25, I would damn well want to be in the office, its impossible to learn multiple skills from multiple people if you are sitting at home.
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We have a Monday-Wednesday office policy. The place is pretty empty Thursday and Friday
There is no doubt that the team as a whole are more productive across basically every measure when we are in the office together
Selfishly, I generally wake up with smile on Thursday mornings
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@NTA said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Kiwiwomble said in Grumpy Old Man:
@NTA definitely some people, like your self, have found new levels of efficiency but ive also had people tell me they much prefer working from home because they can do laundry, and go for a run or the gym, look after kids during the day etc...their overall life efficiency might be up...but not much of it is work
They told us we could have work-life balance
It's the extra layers of getting ready and sitting in fucking traffic. No, I'm not going to use that extra time to do more work, but if I'm killing off my weekly tasks in 30 hours (or less) instead of 40 because it is quieter at home.
And if I have achieved that without having to put on long pants more than one day a week, everyone is winning because the employer is getting their money's worth, and I'm happier and more likely to stay.
I went down a rabbit hole on YouTube about "Bullshit Jobs". Some interesting stuff there.
sure...thats how it started for lots of people...but now going to the gym or a run isn't from 8 till 9....its "i like the teacher in the class from 930-1030 so im going to do that instead...plus 30min on either side to get there etc
as i say...it works great if your job entails sitting down and "doing something"....less so if it involves arranging teams of people to go and do stuff or answering questions form clients....i now spend part of my day telling clients "yeah...they should online today...i'll chase them up to see where they are"
and what was a 5min conversation pre covid where you ask someone to do something and then see them doing it....is now several attempts to find them on line....agree when they'll be free...booking in a call....tell them whats needed...and then repeat process to check how theyre going
@antipodean said in Grumpy Old Man:
... Without which shit middle managers would feel powerless and be exposed as adding two-fifths of fuck all.
next time just tag me
@voodoo said in Grumpy Old Man:
We have a Monday-Wednesday office policy. The place is pretty empty Thursday and Friday
There is no doubt that the team as a whole are more productive across basically every measure when we are in the office together
Selfishly, I generally wake up with smile on Thursday mornings
im lucky that i still have a small but good team what will come in on thursdays and fridays, go have a beer after work
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I was 3 days in and 2 home, and everyone was in Monday. Worked well, certainly had to keep whereabouts updated on WFH days. And popping away from desk to hang out the washing wasted time probably equalled gossip in office time. But I know for sure a fair few took the piss - but half of our area were different group, full it nerds, and they really took the piss ime
Now I am working for an Oz company and its fully WFH. Just started, so I'm not sure how this will work for me! But structure on time at desk,, which is fine by me, and separate workstation away from living area and also my gaming pc. Work/play apart from each other
Non grumpy bit. Have my music on, when not in meetings and calls, and when my watch tells me I need to move I can dad dance to my heart's content until move warning is cleared 🤣
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@Dodge said in Grumpy Old Man:
We're back in 4 days a week now and to be honest, I prefer it. Working from home when everyone was working from home was fine, and life around work was easier, but these days, lots of stuff happens between meetings, on the way to meetings, bumping into people. Its easier to have 2 minute conversations face to face than scheduling bloody calls as people's diaries are a nightmare and you can never find the right person at the right time if you're not in the office.
Absolutely all of this - my boss is a massive fan of "hallway conversations" because they cut out a lot of the bullshit and you'll find stuff out you might otherwise not.
I think for me the 1-2 days per week in the office will be a decent balance. My daughter finishes high school this year which will change the work life thing signicantly. No more school fees for one thing, which isn't a huge burden but is a bunch of money we will be able to spend on something else.
My son is in his third year of Uni so potentially he's in the workforce next year.... which reminds me: I need to grump about something else...
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I'm in three days a week, Tues-Thurs. I'm in a department of one in a relatively small company, the only person in our office I ever need to speak to is the boss. If he's not in then it's a little bit pointless, the water cooler chat with other people is fine enough but has no value professionally.
It's a largely pointless job shifting emails through the ether. About the third pointless email job I've worked. Pays well (too well if I'm honest), gets me home at 5:30 to see the kids, but there's not much there in terms of mental/physical stimulation.
Sometimes I wish I was a farmer or a builder, someone who delivers real value to the world. But then I realise that would actually entail hard work, something I've steadfastly avoided for all of my 36 years on earth.
So I make my peace with the pointlessness. Go home, hug my kids, watch some rugby. It's not all bad.
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Given my current situation as a solo dad to three boys aged 4, 6 and 11, being able to work remotely full time has been an absolute godsend. I'm not sure how I would have managed without it, other than very expensive child care / nanny arrangements. But I do miss going into the office and interacting with people face to face, before Covid I was 3 days in and 2 at home, which was a really good balance for me, so would like to return to something similar to that down the track, but it's not really an option right now.
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Most of my team could WFH and I have no problems with them doing so which causes problems within our other business units where the GM's are less sanguine. Thing is the work they do is transactional. I can see (if I can be bothered) what they have been doing, but I don't need to as if they stop feeding the machine the sausages stop coming out the end which is like duh obvious.
Without getting into a culture wars conversation when interviewing I do see generational differences regarding expectations. Certain demographics seem to think any sort of structural standards as an outrageous curbing of their human rights. Which is fine. Thanks for letting me know. Good luck in your job search.
I personally don't like WFH but I am in the office before 6:00 so I have a 12-minute commute and get some quality time before anyone else disrupts my day. In the last 6 months I have changed my leave time too so I generally get away by 4:00 pm.
We don't do meetings unless absolutely necessary. I've always found them in the main to be pointless and as I set the culture.... I have always had to attend a lot of evening Teams meetings but about 6 months ago I just stopped unless I was genuinely interested.
What they gonna do - fire me? Anyway I quit at the end of Jan so that would be a win if they did.
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ah WFH, fucking covid...
My wife and i employee in almost opposite demographics, and yet run in to the same issues. I have older people who work for me who i HAVE to let work from home at least partially thanks to either age or home situation (cheers FairWork). I don't have a huge issue with it other than it makes knowledge sharing far harder. I view the main focus of the role is providing info to other business units, they view the role as data entry, so don't see why they should come in to be interrupted. Also why waste time on a commute? Part of me gets it, part of me is pissed off.
My wife hires younger people and they see work completely different to the way we used to. They despise the social side of work (the demise of their interpersonal skills is related to this), and see any interractions as an infringement on their time. They don't want to talk to people, they just want to "do their jobs" and thus why can't they do it at home. They want to be fucking paid for it too, holy... And, for some who don't know different (ie entered the workforce any time in the last 5 years) WFH is a right that you are trying to take away from them.
I actually think it makes work places poorer for it.
I personally hate it, home is for home, work is for work. But i get i am in the minority there.
The genie is out of the bottle and ain't going back in. Don't our super funds own a shitload of inner city commercial property? That's not good.
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@mariner4life we;re on the same page i think
the last point is interesting, and it shows much little i know about some stuff...loads of empty space both commercial and retail but my understanding is its not getting cheaper (my knowledge obviously stops at supply v demand), our local independent super market was awesome....land lord tried to put up the rent (even though there was lots of empty shops on the street)...they just said no and fucked off to a different suburb...how is having an empty shop better than what ever rent they were getting beforehand?
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pretty sure buildings are valued at hypothetical rent, not actual rent. That's why rents don't go down, they just throw in "fit out allowances" and shit.
So yes, i think high hypothetical rent is better than low actual rent,
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@mariner4life and yet when we went to get a new mortgage, we couldn't include a bonus in our calculations Mrs Womble was going to get until she'd actually received 3 in a row...but not getting rent through the door doesnt matter, you would think not being able to find anyone willing to pay the rent proves it doesnt have that value...everything is messed up
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i may be completely making that up, it's just something i remember from a conversation years ago
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@mariner4life said in Grumpy Old Man:
My wife hires younger people and they see work completely different to the way we used to. They despise the social side of work (the demise of their interpersonal skills is related to this), and see any interractions as an infringement on their time. They don't want to talk to people, they just want to "do their jobs" and thus why can't they do it at home.
They're so socially inept too. I've noticed a drastic decline in young people attending afterwork drinks. Go to a pub and if they are there, they're lining up to order drinks. Then indignant that you ignore their orderly line and just wander straight up to the bar.
Then complaining (online) that they and their friends are single, the other sex has unrealistic expectations, impossible to meet people outside of apps...
Small wonder there's an explosion of autists.
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Our GOM theory is that with phones and apps you no longer need to socialise in person, you are connected to people 24-7 in a myriad of ways. And actually meeting up is just viewed as an unnecessary hassle.
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@mariner4life said in Grumpy Old Man:
Our GOM theory is that with phones and apps you no longer need to socialise in person, you are connected to people 24-7 in a myriad of ways. And actually meeting up is just viewed as an unnecessary hassle.
There's a meme along the lines of:
"Remember the 90s when we paid money for ringtones? Now if that thing made a sound I'd throw it in the river"
