Return to work push?

[p0ke]

I think work from home is great, and am all for it, EXCEPT that there are a lot of people who pull this crap of having software/hardware to jiggle their mouse, and who hold two full times jobs, or who otherwise are putting in a couple hours of work on a full shift. They piss me off, because it’s ruining it for the people who legitimately do work from home. That kind of bullshit taking advantage of the system is what is pushing many employers to get people back to the office, or making them go to contract work with no benefits. Most of us could actually do good work at home, but the lack of trust is brought on by a minority of people abusing the system.

Yeah, it sucks that people do that. I don't work 100% myself all the time when I'm supposed to, sure, but that's only when there's no deadlines and stuff. When shit hits the fan, I hunker down and work like there's no tomorrow and don't care about overtime or anything, as long as I get the job done. And by doing that, I "buy" myself the right to take it easy again when the deadlines are gone.

I guess it's different working in a huge corporation, but this is the way in a 6-person software development company (we are owned by a pretty big corporation, whom we do a bulk of our work for, but still).

 

[SalsaWood]

Having run some of my own landscaping and hardscaping crews back in the day I will tell you there is no damn way I'm letting anyone work for me without the ability to look them in the eyes and communicate. It's not about a language barrier, either. I'm not hitching the good name of my workmanship to the wagon of a single employee's ability to adhere to the honor system. Most people aren't good enough at it in my experience. Granted, there's a big difference between capable people given the autonomy to do their own jobs, a gaggle of people willing to show up everyday not actually being willing to show up everyday, and fleecing turds. In my experience you get a good mix of all until it gets hot, or cold, or wet. Then we see who wants to work and who's not coming back.

I worked from home since the pandemic and have been riding it out. I don't especially enjoy it, I see it as living at work with my unpredictable workload. It is better than commuting.

 

[soliloquy]

I'm not sure how successful i will be in this, but I'm trying to renegotiate my contract with my work.
I am permanent and full time, but wondering if they will 'rehire' me at a lower salary. Give me a 10% cut and let me work in peace at home. I come to the office for emergencies, but beyond that, leave me alone.

 

[RevDrucifer]

Sunk Cost Fallacy. They've already paid for it whether or not they use it, so they have to "get their money's worth."

The economics textbook explanation of this is really a perfect example - you've purchased a non-refundable train ticket to go to a different city, but then a friend of yours finds out you're going and offers to give you a ride. Do you take them up on it? The "normal" inclination is because you've paid for the ticket you need to use it, but the economically rational, utility-maximizing answer is that you've paid for the ticket whether or not you use it so the best course of action is to assess your options and choose whichever you'll enjoy more. If your friend is a really shitty driver or their car is an absolute piece of shit, that may very well be the train.... but, more likely than not, it's going to be you'll enjoy traveling with your friend a lot more, so the economically rational thing to do is walk away from your sunk cost and take the ride with your friend.

Basically, way more of corporate America than should be the case is currently falling guilty to the sunk cost fallacy, and thinking because they've already paid for office space, they'd better use it so they don't "waste their money."

On my end a lot of it too is just that the president of my firm is an older white man of a certain generation and "normal" work is having everyone in the office, so that's what a return to normal should look like. We won't have "beat" covid until we're back to at least 4 days a week, possibly all 5, and if we stop short of 5 it'll be a "generous perk" rather than a recognition of the fact our jobs can be done remote.

If they own the entire building and everything in it, sure. If not, there’s a lease agreement they can‘t just back out of. Rent gets paid monthly like a residential tenant.

To back out of it, they’ve either got to pay the lease off or find someone to sublease the space, which is usually a hassle at multiple points until the lease is expired. I’ve only seen that happen once in the 6 years I’ve been in commercial property management and the tenant with the original lease regretted every minute of it.

When we build suites out, we’re generally investing millions into them, sometimes the tenant will incur some costs at the very start if they’re asking for something specialized our buildings will never need/utilize, but that’s pretty rare. There’s no way in hell would we do that and not have protections in place to ensure we can recoup all that money.

 

[Drew]

If they own the entire building and everything in it, sure. If not, there’s a lease agreement they can‘t just back out of. Rent gets paid monthly like a residential tenant.

To back out of it, they’ve either got to pay the lease off or find someone to sublease the space, which is usually a hassle at multiple points until the lease is expired. I’ve only seen that happen once in the 6 years I’ve been in commercial property management and the tenant with the original lease regretted every minute of it.

When we build suites out, we’re generally investing millions into them, sometimes the tenant will incur some costs at the very start if they’re asking for something specialized our buildings will never need/utilize, but that’s pretty rare. There’s no way in hell would we do that and not have protections in place to ensure we can recoup all that money.

I don't think you quite got my point, though.

You're right - you can't just "back out of a lease" before the end of its term.

But, there's no one holding a gun to you and saying just because you pay that lease, you have to use the space.

That's why this is a sunk cost fallacy - your monthly lease payment, from now until the expiration of the lease in, oh, five years' time, is a sunk cost. You can't un-sink it; unless there's specific early termination language or other optionality in your lease agreement, you're legally obligated to pay it. But, importantly, you're under no obligation to use the space you've paid for. It can stand empty, but as long as you make your monthly payments, your fine.

You're literally committing the sunk cost fallacy right now, in this post, by assuming that if you have a sunk cost in the form of a multi-year rental agreement for a space then you have to physically occupy that space simply because you've already paid for it.

 

[RevDrucifer]

I don't think you quite got my point, though.

You're right - you can't just "back out of a lease" before the end of its term.

But, there's no one holding a gun to you and saying just because you pay that lease, you have to use the space.

That's why this is a sunk cost fallacy - your monthly lease payment, from now until the expiration of the lease in, oh, five years' time, is a sunk cost. You can't un-sink it; unless there's specific early termination language or other optionality in your lease agreement, you're legally obligated to pay it. But, importantly, you're under no obligation to use the space you've paid for. It can stand empty, but as long as you make your monthly payments, your fine.

You're literally committing the sunk cost fallacy right now, in this post, by assuming that if you have a sunk cost in the form of a multi-year rental agreement for a space then you have to physically occupy that space simply because you've already paid for it.

I didn’t say that part at all and even discussed the two tenants we have here who are paying a stupid amount of money for suites they don’t occupy. We’re trying to offer one a deal to give us space back because we don’t believe they’re ever coming back at this point.

I just said you can’t just back out of the lease, but re-reading your post I see you didn’t offer that as a solution and that’s my bad for the way I speed read.

I did say in another post they’re obligated to keep utilities hooked up, but I don’t think any tenant would want to deal with the remediation costs at several hundred thousand dollars when they could have just paid the electric bill.

 

[thebeesknees22]

I'm not sure how successful i will be in this, but I'm trying to renegotiate my contract with my work.
I am permanent and full time, but wondering if they will 'rehire' me at a lower salary. Give me a 10% cut and let me work in peace at home. I come to the office for emergencies, but beyond that, leave me alone.

I was worried about this when I went remote and moved back to the US, but they did right by me. ...shockingly. I expected a huge hit like "we'll give you the exchange rate" or something like that, but they didn't.

 

[BlackMastodon]

I've bitched about this countless times in other threads but I'll jump at the opportunity to do so again.

I'm a Canadian working in Michigan and started going into the office once in a while as needed in late 2021. When they opened up the borders around mid-2022 I was given the choice to either work entirely from home and only perform work a maximum of 12 days a year in the US, or work a minimum of 60% of the year in the US. That was dictated by the CRA and IRS, though, and the company I work for complying. Since I can't do my job and only be in the US 12 times a year, I didn't have much of a choice.

They did a slow roll-out of getting people back into the office by encouraging people to start showing up 3 days a week but be flexible and it's up to your director how they want to do things. They called it "work effectively" which sounded great and seemed logical: if you can get your job done at home and only need to come in for team meetings or something a couple times a week, then do it.

Early 2023 they announce that they need to save $2 Billion over the next 2 years otherwise things will get ugly, so they offered buyouts to employees with 8+ years of experience while saying they may need to do involuntary lay-offs if the voluntary severences don't go well. Luckily, enough people took it and they said they won't do lay-off (for now, thought I won't be surprised if we see more this year).

December rolls around and the CEO emails everyone saying "work effectively" is dead: starting Jan 8th 2024 everyone will be back at the office from Tues-Thurs if you live within 50 miles of a main office.

It's been a shitshow ever since. Not enough parking so may the gods have mercy on you if you dare to show up after 8:30. Same goes for desks since all the offices are open concept and there's no assigned seating. They tried to explain the return to office under the guise of "encouraging collaboration" which other companies have also tried (see "I don't have the numbers to prove it, but I know in person is better" or whatever the fuck Amazon [I think] said). Office buildings are expensive, especially when you have several on a campus that's a square mile large, I get it. They also have to pay for house keeping and food services, but it doesn't make as much sense to keep food services going if there's no one there buying anything.

I'm in 3-4 days a week now, working from home the other 2 days or 1, respectively.
Office morale and faith in senior leadership has broken through the shitter, through the foundation, and hit bedrock.
Lol, lmao even, at the thought of perks. Free printing and pens, I guess?
My housing situation is still fine, pretty much unaffected by return to work. Good thing I didn't sink a bunch of money into a home office, and I'm lucky I make good money.
My mental health is also in the shitter, though it's a combination of frustration from people taking "my" desk (the one I've been sitting at for almost 2 years without being bothered, and can't really say anything about when it happens), the office being crowded, traffic being significantly worse, and the my main responsibility at work being dogshit.

I said it before and I'll say it again: I miss the pandemic.

 

[Moongrum]

They did a slow roll-out of getting people back into the office by encouraging people to start showing up 3 days a week but be flexible and it's up to your director how they want to do things. They called it "work effectively" which sounded great and seemed logical: if you can get your job done at home and only need to come in for team meetings or something a couple times a week, then do it.

Early 2023 they announce that they need to save $2 Billion over the next 2 years otherwise things will get ugly, so they offered buyouts to employees with 8+ years of experience while saying they may need to do involuntary lay-offs if the voluntary severences don't go well. Luckily, enough people took it and they said they won't do lay-off (for now, thought I won't be surprised if we see more this year).

December rolls around and the CEO emails everyone saying "work effectively" is dead: starting Jan 8th 2024 everyone will be back at the office from Tues-Thurs if you live within 50 miles of a main office.

It's been a shitshow ever since. Not enough parking so may the gods have mercy on you if you dare to show up after 8:30. Same goes for desks since all the offices are open concept and there's no assigned seating. They tried to explain the return to office under the guise of "encouraging collaboration" which other companies have also tried (see "I don't have the numbers to prove it, but I know in person is better" or whatever the fuck Amazon [I think] said). Office buildings are expensive, especially when you have several on a campus that's a square mile large, I get it. They also have to pay for house keeping and food services, but it doesn't make as much sense to keep food services going if there's no one there buying anything.

I'm in 3-4 days a week now, working from home the other 2 days or 1, respectively.
Office morale and faith in senior leadership has broken through the shitter, through the foundation, and hit bedrock.
Lol, lmao even, at the thought of perks. Free printing and pens, I guess?
My housing situation is still fine, pretty much unaffected by return to work. Good thing I didn't sink a bunch of money into a home office, and I'm lucky I make good money.
My mental health is also in the shitter, though it's a combination of frustration from people taking "my" desk (the one I've been sitting at for almost 2 years without being bothered, and can't really say anything about when it happens), the office being crowded, traffic being significantly worse, and the my main responsibility at work being dogshit.

I said it before and I'll say it again: I miss the pandemic.

This is very similar to what my employer is going through right now. But instead of "work effectively" it's called "pledge to flex"
Our layoffs will happen in April, and they said they're going to try to see who they can get to do early retirement(??), which is unfortunate for me as I was daydreaming of volunteering to be laid off with severance.

 

[Shask]

I have done half and half the last few years with no change. I really dont mind though. I worked from home full time for 8 years before Covid, and that got really boring after several years.

If anything, I think having to go into an office makes it harder for your job to get outsourced to the other side of the world for $2/hr.

 

[Edika]

During the pandemic a lot of local businesses closed down. My company stayed open but aside of the workforce that had to be inside the factory to build our products, the rest were working from home. To their credit, they made of lot effort to setup the network so most of the engineers can work from home with no issues. So we could communicate with the people still in the factory if there were issues and they required more expertise. But I was able to do the day to day stuff. While I had a lot do plus several meetings, when I was reading something or was a bit of dead time, I'd play a bit of guitar, or cook while I worked.

Management was surprised how seamless the transition was. People liked and management was quite open to WFH or Hybrid. The moment the pandemic was declared "over", the very next day the narrative changed. Suddenly, if we worked from home it would contribute to moving the factory to Asia. They never mentioned real estate but they were making silly arguments about in person interaction amd brainstorming. I've heard arguments about people not working while at home but I've seen people not working while at work lol.

WFH was out of the question in our factory and hybrid would be considered but require new contracts and approval from upper management. But if your role had any type of process work in it you were automatically excluded. And they couldn't allow that for people in design as it would unfair for the rest of us. The hybrid option would be two days in the office but had to share a desk or use whatever was free, again under upper management discretion so mostly no lol. It was hilarious and sad to see our department's general manager and the rest of the management minions backtracking on all they were saying and promising during the pandemic as they were trying to tell us we have three options while we only had one.

So we're back full time but can work the odd day from home if need be, on our manager's discretion, as long as it's not a pattern and done all the time. I don't mind being in the office but I can understand why some prefer to work from home. At least more managers are not as fussy if there's one or two days some work from home, but the whole communication and initial enforcement left a really sour taste to everyone.

TL;DR version, during the pandemic we worked from home, it worked, the said we can keep it up and the day immediately when things opened up, they backtracked and brought us back full time.

 

[soliloquy]

For what it's worth (and I can't believe I'm defending this), the return to office does help keep some/many people in jobs.

Commercial real estate is a big deal, draws in billions of dollars, and millions of people invest in them. Case in point, Apple's recent HQ costs 5 billion dollars. What is happening to that 5 billion? It's being reinvested, utilized, moved around, liquidated, spent on buying more shit etc. banks and investment firms (my organization) get to keep their jobs because offices are opening again.

Additionally, that 5 billion dollar HQ needs to be hooked up to utilities. Yay, for electricians and plumbers to get jobs. That place also needs food and what not, so even more people get to work. That place also provides other indirect services.



But...I'm also getting to the point where I'm wondering why any of this shit matters? We are creating many of these useless zero-value jobs and we have many of these jobs that don't contribute to the society in any major way, other than to keep the top 1% rich, while we screw over other 99%.

Yes, my work morale is super low, partly due to being forced to go back to the office

 

[BlackMastodon]

Re: commuting - my commute isn't too bad at 36 km taking about 30 minutes with little-to-no traffic one way. That's a good committee time for me to listen to podcasts and mentally prepare for work or home time. I also have to cross a border, though, and that's a little over $10 per day round trip. My partner also started grad school in Michigan recently so we try to carpool as much as possible to save on unnecessary border and parking fees. That first year and a half of the pandemic where we were working from home and I didn't have to buy lunch, I easily saved thousands throughout the year (until the CRA came knocking but that's another story I've told here before).

Ironically, I don't mind going to the office to work because that's where I feel most productive, but only when it was mostly empty. At home it was great because I could sleep in til 7:30-8 and get all my work done. There were distractions, yeah, but I didn't feel guilty about fucking around with video games or something for an hour when I had a lull in my work. If you think people are doing work 100% of the time they're in an office then you're outta your mind. People like to go get coffee, go for a smoke, bullshit with co-workers, or just read the news, all the time. This was a huge adjustment for me when I stopped working on a manufacturing line where you do the same job every 43 seconds when I graduated and started working in an office.

I liked being able to sleep and save money/time while WFH, I even liked being productive with no distractions around while hybrid and the office wasn't overloaded. What I don't like is having to wake up at 6 just to avoid the worst of the traffic, still having to deal with 30-50% increase in commute time including circling the parking structures and lots like a vulture to find a spot, and then trying to find a place to sit near my team so that there's a reason for me to even be there.

They haven't announced working hours yet, so some people roll in closer to lunch or leave at lunch, but once they do then I guarantee most employees will stop taking evening calls or answering emails outside of those working hours. If they want to stop treating us like adults, then you will stop getting responsible adults at work.

Yeah, it sucks that people do that. I don't work 100% myself all the time when I'm supposed to, sure, but that's only when there's no deadlines and stuff. When shit hits the fan, I hunker down and work like there's no tomorrow and don't care about overtime or anything, as long as I get the job done. And by doing that, I "buy" myself the right to take it easy again when the deadlines are gone.

This. As long as I get my work done, why does it matter if I show face? It's not like I'm letting the metaphorical house catch fire. I check all my emails as they come in, I attend all my meetings, how is it any different then going for a coffee break or just taking 10-20 minutes to chat with co-workers?

But I was able to do the day to day stuff. While I had a lot do plus several meetings, when I was reading something or was a bit of dead time, I'd play a bit of guitar, or cook while I worked.

I really miss being able to just take care of household chores during longer calls. I uses to vacuum the whole house, mow the lawn, clean the pool, shovel snow, do dishes, cook. Having to cram that stuff back into few hours we get back at home now feels really shitty.

 

[jaxadam]

I have barely even put socks on in 4 years.

 

[BlackMastodon]

No no, I agree with him. Summer time during the panny, full time WFH, I rarely put socks on too.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

WFH is one thing, but no socks?!? Y'all are fuckin weird. I put on "real" clothes (i.e not sweats) and even have house shoes that I wear when I'm doing chores, "working" on music, DIY repairs, or whatever.

 

[jaxadam]

No no, I agree with him. Summer time during the panny, full time WFH, I rarely put socks on too.

 

[BlackMastodon]

WFH is one thing, but no socks?!? Y'all are fuckin weird. I put on "real" clothes (i.e not sweats) and even have house shoes that I wear when I'm doing chores, "working" on music, DIY repairs, or whatever.

I know it was common advice for getting into the headspace to do WFH to still do a morning routine and get dressed as if you're going to the office, but I said fuck that and worked in comfy clothes with my hair down. Never needed to be in camera anyway.

Also shoes in the house? Absolutely fucking never.

Every night before bed, I'm not an animal.

 

[spudmunkey]

Also shoes in the house? Absolutely fucking never.

Usually "house shoes" are glorified slippers, oftens something like a loafer with a softer sole. As someone who needs a bit of arch support and gets achy when standing on cold stone kitchen floors for too long...yeah...."house shoes" (that never leave the house).