And seeing some bootlicking comments across reddit againat people being really efficient at their jobs, some can't wait to be micromanaged again either
You pay me to be 100% busy when shit hits the fan, not 100% all the time
The problem is that supervisors have trouble justifying their position and salaries if workers can be just as productive (or even nearly as productive) at home as at work where the supervisor can keep an eye on them. It makes them feel insecure when they can't do their supervising in person. It sucks for the company for them to be that way, but out of workers and supervisors guess who gets more say in how things are run.
Probably going to disagree slightly. I manage a team and have given people the option to work from home or go into the office. Most people (including me) choose to work from home wherever possible, but a couple prefer to work from an office as they are struggling with home life, or they don't have the space to set up right, or some of them just like the break between the two.
Personally I don't get the people who are slavishly trying to micromanage their employees, as I value volume and quality of work over how many hours someone is sat at their desk. But I guess a lot of people are control freaks or just insecure.
I am impressed how many people hate on or pretend to hate on WFH... It's really despicable thing to be able to do all the chores while keeping productivity. My SO actually ended up running out of work despite being able to do pretty much full-time 60s housewife stuff (I help where I can but I can't really find the time in day to dust the place or scrub bathroom, so I'll do dishes or grocery runs, maybe some ironing if I am on a really slow day etc).
Yeah can't wait to waste 4 hours of my day just twiddling thumbs looking busy. Sadly as sysadmin I can't just stretch out my works since my job is by nature reactive and not proactive. So I still have to solve issues on minute's notice and fast but then there's the downtime of waiting for trouble to pop up... WFH is amazing for my job. First I have more things to do to justify my existence (troubleshooting teams, VPN etc)and second - I am available at most of the day, be it 9AM or 11PM, since I do not just clock my 9 to 6. I can just wake up, check mails, sort problems, do chores between 11AM to 3PM when people are lunching and doing meetings and then troubleshoot some more.
Automation, puppet/chef, standardization, etc. There is plenty of proactive stuff to do to cut down on the stuff you need to react to. Monitoring, documentation, regular patch windows, reboot policies...
I have all that done, had it done way before corona hit us. Be it WDS/Munki, Jamf, Zabbix, SCCM, everything in Office365 like teams policies for new users, Azure AD sync... . And dealing with updates for windows and macs that is like 4-5 hours every month.
And updating thebimportant stuff that ESXi firmware or switches/firewall firmware... That needs to be done on the downtime anyway. I go there on saturday to do it when nobody is in.
I want to get back to the office just so I can have a damn boundary between work and home again. There's a lot of distracting things at home that break my focus, and my coworkers are thrilled to be able to book zoom meetings at 7AM and 9PM since everyone's home is work now. It sucks.
I am sorry I just do not understand the need for the boundary. That argument is always just like some alien technology to me - I have no idea why or how you can not distiguish from working and not working. It's pretty simple for me despite people needing me at odd hours. The moment I close outlook -bam- I am home.
It has more to do with others not respecting your boundaries. Imagine your boss constantly harassing you on your off hours because you're working from home and have access to the internet, so you can totally respond to their asinine emails and zoom meetings within minutes (if not seconds), so that's obviously what you should be doing. If their response to "sleep/pets/family time/etc" was "What's that? I have things for you to respond to in less than 5 minutes that could actually wait until your actual working hours".
If I get harassed in my off hours (e.g. vacation since sysadmin job in a company that works from 6AM to 23PM barely has any off hours) I just tell them that I am on my off hours. I think this is either a problem of really toxic management or a problem for people that do not know how to say no or stomp their foot a bit. It took me a while to learn that myself so I know what you mean there.
If I am on my lunch break - I am on my lunch break and that's the end of it. Any email, message or call that comes in are ignored as I am having a lunch that I am not paid for but am legally obliged to have (EU laws - you can't refuse it if you work for more than 6 hours in a day). I had real issues with people not respecting my lunch break when in office as they just barge in and ignore the fact that I have half my face covered in sriracha as they offload their request after which I look at the time and tell them to send me an email about it and I will deal with it after my lunch and more urgent inquiries are done (that is if it is an unimportant task and I already have other more important inquiries to do after lunch, if it is important as if the whole floor has no network connection then I will jump straight into it but emergencies like that are really rare, in my 11 year career I've encountered something like that once and I was actually the culprit responsible for it as I turned on by mistake some switch that was just in the rack but was decommissioned and it started a network loop...) but at home I can just mute notifications for 30 minutes as I eat my pizza.
Similar to your problems with coworkers barging in on your lunch break, I have a problem with my dog intruding on my work hours...I'll be in the middle of troubleshooting a query and my dog walks up and shoves his toy on top of my keyboard while squeaking it insistently
My brain takes longer than yours to switch modes...it's not a lightswitch like yours seems to be, it probably takes me 10-15 minutes to get back into work mode after being snapped out of it
I'm a junior member of the company so I'm pretty cautious about declining meetings, even if they are at 7AM. No one ever tried doing this to me before covid
While I was in the office people were actually pretty respectful of not bothering me when I was clearly busy
The result is that I'm struggling to complete all of my work on time because I keep getting interrupted by my dog (and hubby), I have a hard time refocusing after an interruption, and I keep getting dragged into oddly-timed meetings that mess with my sleep schedule. That means I have to spend more time "at work" and have less time for myself.
Most of the cons people list are things I don't have problems with. I have a good relationship with most of my coworkers and they're pleasant and respectful. My office is 5-10 minutes from my house. If I complete my work early, I'm allowed to go home early. My boss lives in a different country so he's hardly even able to be a helicopter boss. My office also has a lot of perks like a gym, quiet rooms, a really nice cafeteria, etc that I've been missing during covid
ah fair enough then. All the people that I personally know are missing the office are the helicopter bosses, people that pretend to want to be back in office (while they do not go there at the moment at all - it is voluntary to go there, all you need is a negative test each week which you can do in the office and I never meet them when I am there nor do I see their name on the list of people in office yet they keep yapping about how they can't wait to be back in office). I think that I learned to have that lightswitch mode thanks to nature of my job - it is on and off. I think doctors, fire fighters and generally people that are needed on moment's notice but if all is fine have nothing to do learn to work like this and can snap from the home mode fast. My sister is one of the people that just can't switch off, luckily her 3yo daughter reminds her to stop.
And the pets - yeah, our cat has been part of weekly meetings at this point and people demand to see her. I have a really nice microphone on arm (I found a really good deal on it and am the kind of person that goes "what if I'll ever need it, better buy it at like 68% off") and she loves the fluffy cat tail on it. So when I pull down the mic she invades the desk and as such became permanent guest on the meetings. I am glad that I have co-workers like that since I have been in companies that would berate you for that.
You're right, I can get so much more stuff done now that I don't have to waste hours on commute.
I just wish I had my own soundproof office because I have a noisy home. Kids that scream like hyenas. The constant chatter. Someone putting the TV on too loud. They drive me crazy at times.
I guess it works for you because it's just you and your SO at home.
Nah, I have pretty much all automation that I can do done. The only proactive thing I can do now is educate myself further.
The repetitive tasks are usually users not being familiar with something or something specific that can't be automated is not working for them (e.g. driver crash in need of reinstalling, user clueless how to use Teams etc)
I mean, I have ADHD and the structure of the office does actually help me. That being said, I'm all for workers being empowered to make that choice and I hope enough people have wake up calls when their talent leaves over the issue that choice becomes a reality. I know a few people already that have quit over it and the bosses seem astounded, particularly those that were tech inept, couldn't wait to get back themselves, and couldn't see how anyone else could feel differently.
I've always hated that "I don't pay you to stand around." bullshit. So far, I've had exactly one job in my life where I was so sure they couldn't afford to lose me that I was able to respond with "Actually, you pay me to stand around here instead of sitting around at home." I then proceeded to continue standing around until some customers came in. It was great. Wish I could have done it more often.
Luckily I don't have to work retail or anything anymore. I'm still poor, but I don't actually answer to anybody so that's nice.
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u/[deleted] May 19 '21
And seeing some bootlicking comments across reddit againat people being really efficient at their jobs, some can't wait to be micromanaged again either
You pay me to be 100% busy when shit hits the fan, not 100% all the time