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My company hasn't forced a complete return to office, but I also work in a lab so I've been going in 1-3 days a week since the beginning of the pandemic. That said, I used to work for Starbucks corporate and still interact with them daily as part of my job, and it's been fascinating having somewhat of an inside view into their return to office. Apparently Howard Schultz just dashed off the email about it without much thought. They have about 1000 too few desks since they rearranged the office as it was planned for permanent employee choice hybrid and there's a major lack of parking (plenty of public transit but people just love their cars) so people are flipping out. It also has me a little worried about my division requiring a certain number of days in the office since we're intertwined with Starbucks. Yes I have to go in for my hands-on work, but it's also my choice and my responsibility when I go in.
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Jan 21, 2023 17:25
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When we first started return to work after the pandemic, they tried making the tech people come in for two weeks and then out for four, staggered by team so they would have full desk utilization. That was cancelled even before it went into effect. Such a bad idea.
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Jan 21, 2023 17:31
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Whenever working out of the office comes up, I point out that most people I work with live in a different time zone, so I wouldn't actually see anyone I work with. I actually prefer to work out of an office when they make it not suck: When I have my own actual office in the office, with a door that closes. Instead, most modern corporate offices seem to be open floor plan ultra high density seating where your desk is barely bigger than a high schooler's desk, and you're crammed in nearly shoulder to shoulder (with people you don't even work with because see above). Commute mostly wasn't a problem because I'd work like 6:30 to 3 and avoid rush out most of the time, but I see why anyone with kids who can't work flexibly hates driving into an office. If I try to be work before 7 AM, it's a 15 minute drive. If I tried to get into work at exactly 9 AM, it would be a 60 minute drive. Working from home does save me hundreds a month, my office is downtown in a city with a lot of great food in walking distance, and it's really difficult to say no to $20 ramen for lunch, $20 sushi, etc.
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Jan 21, 2023 17:38
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smackfu posted:I understand it’s traumatizing to see a floor of empty desks when you just paid the real estate bill but at some point that’s just mismanagement. It's not about money. If it were about money almost every employee would be WFH because that's far cheaper than paying for real estate and infrastructure to put them in. It's about feeling powerful.
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Jan 21, 2023 17:41
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Eric the Mauve posted:It's not about money. If it were about money almost every employee would be WFH because that's far cheaper than paying for real estate and infrastructure to put them in. It's about feeling powerful. Yeah, this is why my boss has stonewalled me on getting a part time deal in one of the local work sites even though I have asked to be in office a couple days a week. They charge an expense for it to out cost center. So instead I am expected to beg a branch manager of one of our retail locations for a spot to work if I should ever need to be on the company’s physical infrastructure or if my power goes out.
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Jan 21, 2023 17:49
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Eric the Mauve posted:It's not about money. If it were about money almost every employee would be WFH because that's far cheaper than paying for real estate and infrastructure to put them in. It's about feeling powerful. Most leases are for multiple years though, and trying to sublet offices that were built-to-suit isn't really feasible right now. Living this as our company opened our brand new, taking-up-two-whole-floor office in downtown Minneapolis in March 2020. :facepalm:
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Jan 21, 2023 18:13
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I just started a new job for a defense contractor and I was surprised at how open they are to wfh, and how many people take advantage of it. I guess I thought that with all the security stuff, they'd use that as an excuse to keep people in the office. but I had people asking me on my second day when I was going to be remote, and I was like, uhhh I barely have anything to do right now (took over a week to get access to all the software I needed). we have an occasional mandatory in-office day but not very often. at my previous job most of the engineers were involved in production support so it made sense for us to be in the office. wfh was an option but it was definitely viewed as an occasional treat, so to speak.
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Jan 21, 2023 18:24
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smackfu posted:When we first started return to work after the pandemic, they tried making the tech people come in for two weeks and then out for four, staggered by team so they would have full desk utilization. lol "after the pandemic"
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Jan 21, 2023 19:07
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I work for a company with over 50k employees, but at a satellite office with only 7 people. I literally tell my 6 reports (researchers) that performance is measured by delivering technical milestones and everything else is noise. End of story.
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Jan 21, 2023 19:08
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My company has a shitload of very prime real estate and a ton more of less-than-prime. Office parks and such. We've been slowly shedding the larger facilities that are far out and not accessible via public transit before the pandemic started. Last year they sent out an email that was basically "yo, make sure you update where you home office is in Workday. In 90 days we're doing a census and culling all non-prime and non-contractually-obligated real estate" and they did. Traded in an entire five story building that 15 years prior would house 1500 employees for a single floor in a smaller building above a metro station that can seat like 50. Closed dozens of smaller satellite offices. This past year they've sent out tons of surveys about returning to the office. I responded to every one of them with "I'm not going to, you can't make me, and if you try I'm going elsewhere" and apparently a very large portion of the company did as well. Fuckin' nobody wants to return to the commuting hell of DC and we all know we have options. I deliberately live and work on metro connected locations and have by far the easiest commute to my client (literally walk outside -> hop on bus -> at door 10 minutes later) and I still don't ever plan on going back on a regular basis. I do 2-3 times a month, for typically a half or three quarters day each time and only to accomplish things that are better in-person like client meetings.
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Jan 21, 2023 19:49
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dxt posted:lol "after the pandemic" I mean it is endemic now and the healthcare system has made adjustments to deal with it. The disease sucks but it’s here to stay and if you are waiting for the genie to go back into the bottle before you go back to life as normal then you will never leave your spider hole again.
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Jan 21, 2023 20:14
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Midjack posted:They just want worker asses in seats in the building. Whose asses exactly doesn't matter at all. Oh that's entirely obvious. I just think it's funny how completely their external narrative ("It's better for collaboration!") breaks down when the rest of reality exerts force upon it. My last company (just changed jobs for this and other reasons) has also been pushing a hybrid return to office, with the stated desire that everyone on a team pick the same days so that collaboration can happen. Except every team has fully remote and geographically disconnected members, who before the pandemic were absolutely left out of important conversations and decision making, because they were remote and everyone in the office would just have a proximity based conversation about something. My team actively experimented and came up with ways to be collaborative and productive; it took us some effort and not all of our ideas turned out to be good, but we figured it out and worked well together. And nobody was left out!
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Jan 21, 2023 20:22
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In theory we were supposed to 'return' (or in my case 'start going', as I just started this job in November) to the office at the start of the year, but no one seems inclined to press the issue. I'm the only one of my team in this state, and almost the only one in this time zone, so yeah, it would be pretty pointless for collaboration reasons.
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Jan 21, 2023 23:51
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Jan 22, 2023 00:35
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When I was growing up I was the kid that knew computers, so I would always jump at the opportunity to generate significant brownie points for a task that would take me 3 seconds. Those opportunities have diminished with age now that old people also generally know how to computer, if you still want a job.
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Jan 22, 2023 00:37
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We're supposed to be back two out of five days, on a schedule we decide. I've seen my director go into the office exactly twice in the last six months, and my direct boss just doesn't show often enough that as far as I'm concerned she doesn't care. There's a few die hards who prefer coming in but their work is much more hands on. The rest of us can just not show up whenever. Our COVID policy is to not show up if we have any headache/sniffle/tiredness/whatever, which is used liberally because many of us have things like allergies and kids in school. It's strange because my office loving loves picayune nitpicky micromanaging bullshit "policies" that they've wielded to kill any sense of moral or pride in this job with a thousand small cuts. This relaxed WFH scheme is a real departure.
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Jan 22, 2023 00:41
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Inner Light posted:When I was growing up I was the kid that knew computers, so I would always jump at the opportunity to generate significant brownie points for a task that would take me 3 seconds. Those opportunities have diminished with age now that old people also generally know how to computer, if you still want a job. That has not been my experience for anything beyond the most basic excel stuff. It’s nice to be needed, but drat those 3 seconds add up sometimes.
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Jan 22, 2023 03:31
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Yeah just yesterday my wife (who is not a tech support person and is fairly senior) was venting about being called over to a higher up's office to help them straighten out some margins in word. Extremely basic poo poo.
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Jan 22, 2023 03:39
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Yeah you never want to be the computer guy.
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Jan 22, 2023 04:22
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therobit posted:I mean it is endemic now and the healthcare system has made adjustments to deal with it. The disease sucks but it’s here to stay and if you are waiting for the genie to go back into the bottle before you go back to life as normal then you will never leave your spider hole again. it's not and the healthcare system hasn't. Life shouldn't be back to normal because it's not, pretending it's still 2019 will not fix the problem.
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Jan 22, 2023 05:04
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dxt posted:it's not and the healthcare system hasn't. Life shouldn't be back to normal because it's not, pretending it's still 2019 will not fix the problem. Agreed. It's important to remember that the case counts are down because we've stopped testing in a lot of areas, and the now-prevalent home rapid antigen test results are typically not reported/recorded unless the patient lands in the hospital.  Even with the reduced testing and lower visibility to positive test results due to home testing being available (I'm not saying RATs are bad, just pointing out that positive test results from them do not get back to any health authorities under the majority of circumstances), we still see case-counts comparable to all but the spike periods. Here's the numerical count for the current week; the graph conveniently puts it over the top of the middle line when it's displayed, so I screencapped it separately to not obscure data.  Just because people are only dying by the busload and not the boatload doesn't make this pandemic even remotely over. We are still firmly in the thick of things and the disease is still mutating rapidly. It's understandable for people to not want to "leave their spider hole," as you put it, when 'endemic' doesn't mean 'safe'. If bombs were endemic to my city's airspace, I still wouldn't come out of the bunker. 
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Jan 22, 2023 05:45
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Eric the Mauve posted:It's not about money. If it were about money almost every employee would be WFH because that's far cheaper than paying for real estate and infrastructure to put them in. It's about feeling powerful. I think it's this too. My relatively new boss laid off everyone at this place around 2 years ago but that didn't stop him from moving the office to the 20th floor of a busy part of downtown during the height of covid. This place can't be worth it with just the 3 other people that work beside me. RadiRoot fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jan 22, 2023 |
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Jan 22, 2023 07:03
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As much as I'd love to stay in my spider hole most of my job can't be done remotely, so I strap on my n95 and go to the office most days. Of course I'm the only one who does, but I'm also the only one who isn't out sick for a week plus at a time multiple times a year, wonder if that's related????
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Jan 22, 2023 07:16
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dxt posted:As much as I'd love to stay in my spider hole most of my job can't be done remotely, so I strap on my n95 and go to the office most days. Of course I'm the only one who does, but I'm also the only one who isn't out sick for a week plus at a time multiple times a year, wonder if that's related???? Impossible. Germ theory is only that; a theory. Instead, the likely culprit is spontaneous generation of thetans inside your coworkers due to their 5G interference preventing them from adhering to the prosperity doctrine. If they wore a copper bracelet, they'd have a better shot at being healthy as long as they didn't forget their colloidal silver, but the best option would be a cycle of some bloodletting and purging. Only then can they be safe from Y2K.
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Jan 22, 2023 11:08
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Magnetic North posted:Impossible. Germ theory is only that; a theory. Instead, the likely culprit is spontaneous generation of thetans inside your coworkers due to their 5G interference preventing them from adhering to the prosperity doctrine. If they wore a copper bracelet, they'd have a better shot at being healthy as long as they didn't forget their colloidal silver, but the best option would be a cycle of some bloodletting and purging. Only then can they be safe from Y2K. Look at this absolute quack Not a single essential oil
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Jan 22, 2023 13:37
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Magnetic North posted:Impossible. Germ theory is only that; a theory. Instead, the likely culprit is spontaneous generation of thetans inside your coworkers due to their 5G interference preventing them from adhering to the prosperity doctrine. If they wore a copper bracelet, they'd have a better shot at being healthy as long as they didn't forget their colloidal silver, but the best option would be a cycle of some bloodletting and purging. Only then can they be safe from Y2K. I knew it. Everyone in the UK has just stopped talking about COVID, maybe because we killed all the old people early on idk. Seeing as my trains are on the busiest lines to the busiest area, and then I go to a busy office and a busier bar, I just gave up on masks and have so far avoided a second case. I have had 4 vaccine shots though, and my thetans are aligned. I did get the flu though and woah that sucked even with the vaccine taking the edge off the symptoms.
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Jan 22, 2023 13:52
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Renegret posted:Look at this absolute quack And don't forget the magnetic mattress!!!
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Jan 22, 2023 16:09
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I have a new, 100% WFH job and they sent me a laptop with 1366 * 768 resolution and 8gb RAM in TYOOL 2022. This has to be illegal, somehow.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:05
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dpkg chopra posted:I have a new, 100% WFH job and they sent me a laptop with 1366 * 768 resolution and 8gb RAM in TYOOL 2022. This has to be illegal, somehow. Are you required to use that laptop? I would seriously consider looking for another new job if I was required to use hardware that lovely. You could hook it up to an external monitor to get a better resolution, but with 8 Gb ram I hope you're not doing much on it besides reviewing documents.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:15
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SpartanIvy posted:Are you required to use that laptop? I would seriously consider looking for another new job if I was required to use hardware that lovely. You could hook it up to an external monitor to get a better resolution, but with 8 Gb ram I hope you're not doing much on it besides reviewing documents. Yeah, it's just document review and I have an external monitor so it should be OK, it was just funny booting it up and I kept thinking maybe my glasses were dirty or something until it clicked what was happening.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:17
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Jan 22, 2023 23:21
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bottom tier hp/dell/lenovo laptops are a sign the it manager reports to the cfo
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Jan 22, 2023 23:45
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How old is that laptop? I’ve got a 11 or 12 year old Dell E6220 with those specs.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:47
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in a well actually posted:bottom tier hp/dell/lenovo laptops are a sign the it manager reports to the cfo It's 100% something like this. it's a fairly recent Latitude with a decent processor, it honestly feels like it cost more for Dell to make them like this. It's fine for my purposes as long as I have a real monitor, so whatever.
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Jan 22, 2023 23:59
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Is it a touchscreen? I don't know why but I find the idea of a monitor with a resolution like that having touch capability pretty amusing. Just realized my work latitude had touch capability not too long ago. I never ever ever use that poo poo.
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Jan 23, 2023 00:08
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in a well actually posted:bottom tier hp/dell/lenovo laptops are a sign the it manager reports to the cfo Quoted for loving truth
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Jan 23, 2023 00:56
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in a well actually posted:bottom tier hp/dell/lenovo laptops are a sign the it manager reports to the cfo also not unreasonable to assume the path to talking with the ceo means going through the cfo
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Jan 23, 2023 00:58
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dpkg chopra posted:I have a new, 100% WFH job and they sent me a laptop with 1366 * 768 resolution and 8gb RAM in TYOOL 2022. This has to be illegal, somehow. When my laptop upgrade was low on ram I pulled out the company credit card and bought as much as the laptop could handle. When it was too slow and IT told me I was not due for an upgrade, I told them my hard drive was making occasional clicking noises, and got an upgrade within a week.
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Jan 23, 2023 01:31
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I think I got a second hand laptop.
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Jan 23, 2023 02:09
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I held off replacing my laptop for 2 years beyond the scheduled replace date because mine works and I’ve heard horror stories about the new ones. Late last week I noticed it suddenly didn’t shut all the way and the part near the trackpad looked a little bulgy. Now I have a morning swap out scheduled for tomorrow and it’s one of my busiest weeks of the year. The IT gods did not approve of my hubris, it appears.
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Jan 23, 2023 03:52
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