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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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
How about a raise?
I was talking to my wife the other day, my company would have to basically double my salary to get me to go into the office. Work life balance during WFH is actually balanced, I actually like my job and the company I’m at, I like the people I work with, I’m more productive and less distracted at home, I get to spend time with my daughter and take care of her, there’s really no downside to WFH for employees that want to WFH.
Working in the office? In addition to the normal costs (clothes, food, transportation, etc), losing 2-3 hours per day commuting, paying for childcare or having my wife not work, getting a second car or my wife not having a way to get to work or take our daughter to appointments, and plenty of other inconveniences and big changes.
Working in an office is an outdated concept for most office jobs now. 100% of my job can and is done remote, even if I had colleagues in my office, a quick teams call or message is just as easy as pulling them away from their work with a question in person. It would take a very very large raise to get me to go into an office, and I would likely be looking for a remote job asap using that newly inflated salary.
There ya go everyone has a price.
Oh, definitely. Pay me enough to offset the purely monetary costs, plus more for the stress of having to get business dressed every day, drive on my own time to get there and pack, time needed for additional preparations like making lunch, and the need for another car or have my wife stay at home? I would do it in that case, not having to worry about paying for things would make my wife and my lives so much easier even with me driving to the office every day.
The problem is, the amount needed to do that is too high for most employers to want to pay and want to pay the minimum needed in most cases. That worked for a long time since very few companies had full WFH jobs so people didn’t really have a choice, now we do
It would have to be a massive raise. At least double my current salary. Nothing else would have me even consider it.
Agree, people here in their high horse acting like wfm is their standing ground to the company. All big companies have to do is dangle a carrot like up the compensation for the year they want everyone back and amortize the comp for the next few years and boom everyone is back.
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.
sitting for 8 hours doing maybe 2 hours of work
This is funny, and something I’ve thought about and talked about with coworkers a lot. When I first started permanent WFH at the beginning of COVID, I used to feel really guilty about doing random chores and stuff around the house during the workday. I felt like I always had to be “on” trying to busy myself or whatever, even if there wasn’t really work to do.
Over time as we have done a partial return to office and I realized I do even less work on the days we go in, I have done a lot of reflection on the way we used to work when we were 100% in the office pre-covid. My conclusion is that on any given day most people were doing between 1-4 hours of actual work, and the rest of the time was spent wandering around, bullshitting, taking walks, browsing the Internet, etc. And everyone thought that was just fine. But a solid half of most days was literally wasted doing nothing productive at all.
So these days I have shifted my attitude to one that is focused on getting my assigned work done, and being somewhat flexible on meeting times and when I can accomplish things. In return I don’t feel guilty if I need to mow the lawn or do some laundry during the day. I have a smartphone and I get notifications. If there is something urgent I’ll drop what I’m doing to handle it. If it can wait, I finish up then take care of it. It’s greatly helped my sanity and I think it’s improved my work, too. We do go to the office once a week or so but I honestly plan to get almost nothing accomplished on those days and consider it a bonus if we do get work done.
I typed out a long reply, and idk where it went but the highlights are
I saw the bullshit of it back in the 90s when I started working. I had MANY arguments with my boomer mother about it. Of course her opinion was shut up, put my head down, and do whatever they say, to keep my job. My opinion was fuck that fire me.
I have never had a job (for someone else) where I couldn’t 100% complete it, accurately in 2 hours a day, max. Often less.
I’m self employed now, and I have never been healthier, happier, or more mentally stable. I have two chronic conditions, that can be/are debilitating, which have never been better controlled. I know I can’t be alone on that.
WFH is 100% better for everyone, and those that WANT to go back to the office, should work that out with their employer. WFH has shown to improve ever metric on the workers lives, and not to mention the reduction in pollution and road congestion.
How about a raise?
Read my second sentence. I literally couldn’t have spoon fed it to you any more.
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.
Ha the shared kitchen responsibilities is such a good call.
Damn we were putting up with so much bullshit in the office
Paid commute (time and expenses) and free lunch.
I would go one further and say commute time paid at 1.5 rates, cause of the hours it needs to be done
And the hazard! Cars are super dangerous, and odds are good that if you’re commuting, there are some nearby, even if you’re doing bus, train, or bike.
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.
Some cubicle farms are just sad. Coffee stains from 20 years ago, along with old fart smells.
I love staying at home when I am “too sick for the commute, but not so sick to answer a couple emails.”
Nothing pisses me off more than hearing some dude hacking up his lungs just across the hallway.
I’ll call in sick a few days later just because, and say there must be something going around. At least it will get me a few days away from the Sickies so I can potentially avoid getting it.
Careful what you wish for regarding cubicles. I would kill for a cubicle in our office. When companies implement these modern collaboration space ideas, it’s all about hotel desks, movable workstations, short or no dividers and open air spaces.
Having a cubicle to myself was fucking awesome. Now there is no privacy, no space to call my own, no place to simply have a phone conversation without everyone within 50 feet of me hearing every word.
62% more pay
Oddly specific
1 million dollars every time I have to be on the highway so 2 miles per day hahaha
And if you were in one of those companies pushing hard to get people back in the office, what pay cut would you be willing to take to make your job fully remote? (I swear I’m not in HR! )
I’ve taken 3 pay cuts so far. Had 3 pay increases since covid forced wfh and each time it’s been less than inflation. I haven’t pushed for more because I’ve been left alone and am one of the last employees here still 100% wfh.
I’m on salary, I already had somewhat flexible hours when I was in the office, had to start at a specific time but could leave when the bulk of my work was done and then would log on from from at the end of the day and tidy up anything that came in after I left. It wasn’t uncommon for me to only be in the office for 3-4 hours on a typical day and my commute was 45mins to an hour, so time wise I now I spend ~50% less time at work.
- 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
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.
How about 4 day work week? Would you be ok to go back to the office then?
As in WFH 1 day per week, or same salary but only 4 days of working? In either case, no. The main people pushing for mandatory in-office is landlords who are freaking out because their office space is no longer in demand, and shitty managers with the mentality of “if I can’t see you working, then you’re not working.” There are also those awful people who want to go back into the office because they miss the drama and messing with people and distracting people while they work
Work 4 days a week reduced work hours same wage. But in the office.
That would help, but just that single incentive would be a no for me.
A valid reason for a start.
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
Money
An office in my city and within 10-15 minutes walking distance.
No. I went remote 11 years ago. I have no intention of going back to an office ever again.
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.
A shit-tonne more money. Like, more than the extra time spent travelling to and from work worth of salary.
Honestly, you are paid by the hour, so why not travel hours?
Worked for a guy back in the early 2010s that paid for travel to the work site, was pretty rad
That brings some weird factors into play. If I’m slightly more qualified to work a job than another candidate, but I live across town and the next best guy lives down the street, it’ll be hard to justify choosing me over a factor unrelated to my performance.
Also, what if I move way into the country or the next major city over? (I live in Denver, and it’s not uncommon for people to commute from Colorado Springs). If that adds 2+ hours of daily round trip commuting to my day over something that was 100% my choice, it’s not really fair to the employer either. I’m not a “think about the businesses” type normally, but that is kinda BS for someone to make a decision that increases someone else’s costs (or decreases their output) by 25%
Yeah, there of course should be a limit. But these things take your time and time is money.
