Edit: Changed to a non-plagerizing link
Even better is if we all got a monthly allowance and not have to work full time. 😆
The very fact that it is something that the workers want
Is WHY Employers want to halt it.
Too many Employers believe that anything the workers want is necessarily bad for Businesses … BECAUSE the workers want it
No shit.
Maybe for most people. I start getting a little too suicidey when I spend too many days working from home.
That sounds like you are using work as a replacement for whatever it is missing in your personal life. Nothing stopping you from going to do things outside of work hours.
No, I do stuff after work. My job is just stressful as fuck and being able to move around and bs with my coworkers helps with that. When I’m WFH I’m stuck at my desk all day and that stress just piles up.
I loved working most days until 12 or 1 in the office, coming home and refocusing on “my” part of my workday. Just enough office, not too much. Sadly now I am glued into a windowless room with a camera on me. Major dissatisfaction, huh.
Yeah I actually do that at my current job. WFH the first hour or so, leave after traffic is down, work from the office until 2ish and leave before afternoon traffic starts up, then wrap things up at home while I prep to workout. That flexibility is one of the only reasons I’m not looking to move unless there’s a huge raise in it for me. The job sucks otherwise.
Just gaining back all the commute time everyday is such a huge bonus for me. Nothing at an office can compare to that alone. And I get to add in a ton of other nice bonuses from being at home.
It may seem silly, but aside from commuting time the biggest advantage for me was being able to use my own bathroom. No bidets in the office washroom!
Working from home has been the default for the last few millenia. Who would have thought that it could make people happier?
yah, because I’m not working lol
I work longer hours at home pretty often. At 5 I leave office to make sure my 1.25-1.5 hour drive gets me home at a decent time, and to make sure I miss the worst traffic which I feel happens between 5:30 and 6.
At home I can just keep working, load up a game on my other monitor but keep working open too,and switch between doing some minor game stuff and back to work. I have a game up now at 7 and wrapped up my notes quite comfortably.
I’m also more alert at home because I sleep in more, getting about an hour more sleep.
We’ve had this capacity for several decades now, and it seems ridiculous that our culture has not fully embraced it with open arms. If that’s not a sign that “we the people” aren’t running the show, I don’t know what is. Freedom my ass.
Due to how isolating our culture and urban planning has become, a lot of people have started using their work as a replacement for their social life. Without it they realize just how caged they are under this system, so they refuse it. They think being given more free time and the ability to do work from the comfort of their own home is a bad thing because it takes away their social outlet.
People have to do what’s best for them. If they need to commute to a job to have a social life, let them. This is absolutely not a reason to force other people to do it.
Of course it isn’t but you are the one who said that it was ridiculous that we haven’t embraced it.
It isn’t ridiculous. It’s actually pretty expected of the society we have built to be against it. There are perfectly explainable reasons why we have yet to embrace it.
I don’t say this to tell you it shouldn’t change. I’m saying this to specifically highlight the things we need to change so that no one will be forced into doing it.
People do need to do what’s best, so we should probably fix things so that being forced to use office work as a replacement for a social life isn’t the best option people have available to them.
As someone who worked from home for almost a decade before being pulled into the office, I regularly got flack from my peers for it as well as older boomer types. IME, people who are forced into the office frequently feel a sense of “fairness” where they want everyone else to come in as well.
“If I have to be miserable, you should too”
I know a few boomers who are against it. They think that online work is not real work and that people who work remote are lazy bums who should get a “real job”. They’re the same type of people who went insane during the lockdowns instead of enjoying the free vacation.
Yeah my boomer dad (materials scientist in the civilian nuclear sector) disagrees. He’s been working from home (and from vacations sometimes…) at least a few days a week for quite a while now, and his old boss was apparently saying that they were going to need to hire 3 people to replace him when he eventually retires.
FWIW I also know some elder millennials who are against it, but I’ve seen how they run their business and let’s just say I wouldn’t take advice from them.
Boomer here, software developer, I started fighting the telecommuting battle with managers in the early 90s. They’d say, “We need you here.” I’d ask, “Why? I can dial in. You have contractors in India you’ve never even met, and that works out fine.” “That’s different.” “How?” They never could come up with valid reasons why we really needed to physically be there, and would generally shut down the conversation with like, “Well, I can see we don’t agree on this.” Correct, and 30 years later they’re still making the same ludicrous arguments.
In my experience, after a little back and forth they realize they can’t win this on facts and just pull rank.
It’s also nice eating out of your own fridge, using your own toilet, and everything else.
from a “managing people” standpoint it’s a little easier (at least in my field) too, because it becomes obvious when someone’s product is shit if I’m paying attention
also i really like shitting at home
Bidet, and that’s all I’ll say
A moist towelette, that’s all you’ll get
Agreed, thanks COVID(I guess?)
I could tolerate going in to the office if I had my own bathroom.
I both agree and disagree with the conclusions in the title…
I agree that for many people, they’re happier, and likely more productive, working from home.
I would also agree that for many different people, working from an office makes them happier/more productive.
It entirely depends on the job, who you are, and the work culture. Some places are toxic and working from home to get away from it is helpful for job satisfaction. I’ve known people who simply focus better when they’re at the office since they have a lot of distractions at home. I know for me, the opposite is true. at home, I’m in control and can limit exposure to distractions, and I can be more productive, more comfortable and overall less unhappy with my job.
IMO, this discussion is less about what companies want, whether work from home or hybrid, or in office … The main conclusion that we should be driving home is that different people need different environments to do their best work, and be happiest with their particular job. To put it simply: workers need to be able to choose.
Until we’re at the stage where employers care less about how, and where you do the work, and they care more about the work getting done… We’re going to keep going back and forth on this.
I like to work from home. That’s me.
I know people who prefer to work from an office. There’s plenty of people who feel they work best from the office.
There’s plenty of people that need to mix between home and office work.
Bluntly: as long as you can do the work from where you’re working, and how you’re working, the rest should be flexible. We’re (presumably) adults and professionals. If we’re given work and we’re being paid to do the work, then we will do the work. We don’t need to be constantly supervised by middle management like toddlers.
Add to this that your preference may change as your life does. Lifestage makes a big difference.
Tl:dr “Nah-uh, not me.”
I like to work from home. That’s me.
And there is, as it turns out, a lot of people like that. Doesn’t actually mean everyone is like that. But it does mean that being given this option, we, as humanity and as workers, are happier.
Your reply reminds me that “I’m not pro-life or pro-choice, I just want people to be able to chose do they want to have an abortion or not”.I am more productive and less depressed working from site and if i work too much from home I get depressed and adhd kicks in and paralizes me.
I don’t see how it benefits everyone not to allow people to work from home at the same time.
This is me too. I love my home. I’ve lived here a long time and have made this my ideal little place on the planet.
I can be ridiculously hyperfocused and productive on my personal hobby projects at home. However, I cannot get jack shit done for work. I still like to work from home fairly often, but I go into the office on a regular basis. Fortunately, I live close to the office.
Work, and society in general, isn’t meant to make us happier.
It fuckin should be. We are all here for a blink of an eye on a spinning rock next to uncontrollable chaos. Let us enjoy the ride and quit squabbling over which idol is right or who has the most manufactured wealth.
Correct. I am merely relaying my observations.
Right, remember that whole line of the American dream? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of quarterly profits.
Fuck you.
Fuck me? I didn’t invent this…
I’ve observed that work seems to be a system to transfer money from millionaires to billionaires through the working stiff’s paycheck.
Oh my god! None of us had any idea that’s how it worked! That’s such a revolutionary observation! We should all just internalize it as an unchangeable thing and accept life ever steeper decline towards a feudalist hellscape!
You’ve offered nothing, but you managed to offer nothing from a pedestal. Maybe just don’t say anything, rather than assume everyone but you can grasp the basic and obvious realities of the situation. Or are you implying we all just roll over and take it?
Have you considered therapy? You sound mentally ill.
Got any other cliche’s, or do you have anything real to add to the conversation?
why so hostile?
Haha! Now if only the point of work was to make you happy! If research showed it made your boss wealthier then everyone would be WFH tomorrow!
It DOES make them wealthier. Since productivity isn’t lost while employees WFH, that means that they get the same results while saving money from having costs associated with office space like rent, utilities, furnishing, and maintenance. The reason why they don’t do it is because office real estate is a business worth billions and the rich are all invested in it. They’re so greedy and out of touch, they’d make up any lie to demonize WFH.
It also makes employees wealthier… Think of all the money you flush down the drain making your car move from home to the office and back again… Just that alone is easily thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars per year, depending on your vehicle and type of fuel, efficiency, etc.
Everyone wins except the real estate owners and their stakeholders, which, as you astutely pointed out, are the business owners. Rent is a way for them to essentially launder money into their own pockets. They legitimately pay their office rent, and a chunk of that comes back to them in dividends from the land owning company.
It’s a club, and you ain’t in it.
The capitalist club.
how will landlords who own all the buildings in business districts get paid, then? do you want their properties to stay empty? do you just want them to starve?
Just an FYI, most commercial real estate is owned by massive corporations because they’re the only ones with enough money to build and own skyscrapers. Most mom and pop landlords are residential and they own 4 units or less. It’s very rare for an average, even a wealthy average person to own more than a couple of commercial properties that they rent out. Corporate landlords are very much a big reason why WFH isn’t the standard.
Little do they know that worker happiness is considered the enemy of productivity.* Plus, it’s harder to micromanage them when they’re at home.
*By employers, not the workers, obviously.
I don’t get this.
When I was unhappy at my last job I was way less productive.
Now I’m enjoying my new job and spend my time solving real technical problems and building real projects.
I was considering taking a pay cut just to leave my last job it had gotten so toxic. You can pay employees less if they’re otherwise satisfied.
For 4 years we studied water and came to the conclusion that water is made of water. And it is liquid. And wet. But we aren’t sure about wetness because of some intricate terminology nuances.