Poll of the Day > Whelp it's official, I have to start going into the office two days a week

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is the greatest injustice in the history of earth!

Couldn't you ask if you could in go two nights a week instead?

Vampire_Chicken posted...

Couldn't you ask if you could in go two nights a week instead?

Im afraid of the dark

The Canadian government decided to enforce that as a policy at the start of this fiscal year (just a blanket two days per week minimum for the whole country with zero consideration for the work being done), but shooting it down was among the demands when we went on strike in April, and the new collective agreement that's currently being voted on has redefined our telework policy to be an individual decision between managers and their employees instead of something enforced unilaterally by some faceless bureaucrat in Ottawa, so I'm looking forward to that new agreement coming into effect.

adjl posted...

The Canadian government decided to enforce that as a policy at the start of this fiscal year (just a blanket two days per week minimum for the whole country with zero consideration for the work being done), but shooting it down was among the demands when we went on strike in April, and the new collective agreement that's currently being voted on has redefined our telework policy to be an individual decision between managers and their employees instead of something enforced unilaterally by some faceless bureaucrat in Ottawa, so I'm looking forward to that new agreement coming into effect.

Thats actually pretty cool.

I miss going into the office. When I could go into the office I didn't feel guilty about walking out for lunch and having all sorts of adventures like that.

MARlO posted...

Thats actually pretty cool.

Sometimes, unions come in pretty handy. Though I'm like 99% sure that they only rammed the 2-day thing through (we'd been back for one day a week since October, with varying degrees of compliance, and the 2-day thing was doubling down on that and pushing to enforce it more strictly) because there were already rumblings of a strike due to stalled negotiations around pay and a couple other key points, and giving the low-hanging fruit of "okay, I guess we can allow telework decisions to be made based on operational requirements and individual performance metrics instead of forcing everyone back for literally no reason" made for an easy bargaining chip. The messaging around the new policy was extremely vague and had basically no answers about what the specific expectations were going to be, what constituted a valid exception, or anything else that was entirely necessary to actually have the policy in effect.

Judgmenl posted...

I miss going into the office. When I could go into the office I didn't feel guilty about walking out for lunch and having all sorts of adventures like that.

So long as you're getting your work done, you shouldn't feel guilty about doing anything else throughout the day. Your employer doesn't own your free time.

Time to quit your job.

If my office required me back in the office that is instant quit for me.

Same thing happened to my dad about a month or 2 ago. He was working from home since the pandemic and absolutely loved it, now he has to go into the office twice a week. His home setup is quite a bit nicer and has more screens than his office setup too

If only we had an economic model that let you vote on these things instead of living your adult life as someone else's grateful bitch

Dikitain posted...

Time to quit your job.

If my office required me back in the office that is instant quit for me.

Believe me it crossed my mind. I have to drive all the way into the city for my gig. Even if its only twice a week, its still a sucky commute.

MARlO posted...

Even if its only twice a week, its still a sucky commute.

Working from home feels so much more ... civilized in that regard. On the two days a week I have to go into the office, I have to get up at 5:30am for a two-hour commute. When I'm working from home, I can work while I'm still eating breakfast after getting up late.

Vampire_Chicken posted...

Working from home feels so much more ... civilized in that regard. On the two days a week I have to go into the office, I have to get up at 5:30am for a two-hour commute. When I'm working from home, I can work while I'm still eating breakfast after getting up late.

I mean, any company that actually sits and thinks about it for enough time will realize that employees are more productive working from home. Sure, you get the people who are going to move the mouse on their work computer every 5 minutes while watching Netflix to be "active", but you can weed them out pretty quickly. Most of the time though, your employees get less distractions and can work whenever they want.

Anybody who says that in-person work environments are a must clearly hasn't pulled their head out of their ass in the last 20 years.

shut up marlo

pikakaeru posted...

shut up marlo

Never!

Dikitain posted...

I mean, any company that actually sits and thinks about it for enough time will realize that employees are more productive working from home. Sure, you get the people who are going to move the mouse on their work computer every 5 minutes while watching Netflix to be "active", but you can weed them out pretty quickly. Most of the time though, your employees get less distractions and can work whenever they want.

Anybody who says that in-person work environments are a must clearly hasn't pulled their head out of their ass in the last 20 years.

It's a combination of corporations wanting to avoid depreciating the offices they own/feeling like they're wasting offices they're leasing (sunk cost fallacy, ho!), management not wanting to lose out on the cushy offices they've been given as rewards for their promotions, and management that wants to cling to the narrative that there's actually any point to the micromanaging busywork that comprises their entire jobs. There are also concerns about the ability to motivate people with non-cash incentives (which do actually tend to motivate better than simple raises, but only because you can see all the people who didn't get that incentive to remind you of what you achieved, whereas a new salary just becomes the status quo), which means corporations have to spend more money handing out raises if they want to motivate people.

Of course, all of those are corporate problems, not anything to do with productivity or worker welfare.

Vampire_Chicken posted...

Working from home feels so much more ... civilized in that regard. On the two days a week I have to go into the office, I have to get up at 5:30am for a two-hour commute. When I'm working from home, I can work while I'm still eating breakfast after getting up late.

I've outright told my manager that if showing up in the office purely for the sake of showing up in the office is a required work activity, I'm not leaving my house before I'd normally start work. If it's a work activity, either I get paid overtime to do it outside of work hours, or it doesn't happen outside of work hours. Sure, that means ~40 minutes less actual work those days, but that's not my problem. I'm also perfectly content to be present for my actual work hours when my work legitimately needs an in-person presence, since then commuting isn't a work activity.

It's especially frustrating for me because the nature of my work is such that I have actually been going into the office an average of 2-3 days a week for the last two years, but we recently finally restructured things so I no longer have to (I was managing fleet vehicles on the side of my regular tasks and would periodically have to go in to give the keys to people that needed them, but now those duties have been transferred elsewhere), only to then have this arbitrary policy dumped on us to force me to keep going in. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that new agreement coming into effect.

adjl posted...

It's a combination of corporations wanting to avoid depreciating the offices they own/feeling like they're wasting offices they're leasing (sunk cost fallacy, ho!), management not wanting to lose out on the cushy offices they've been given as rewards for their promotions, and management that wants to cling to the narrative that there's actually any point to the micromanaging busywork that comprises their entire jobs. There are also concerns about the ability to motivate people with non-cash incentives (which do actually tend to motivate better than simple raises, but only because you can see all the people who didn't get that incentive to remind you of what you achieved, whereas a new salary just becomes the status quo), which means corporations have to spend more money handing out raises if they want to motivate people.

Of course, all of those are corporate problems, not anything to do with productivity or worker welfare. There's also a baffling lack of interest in the most obvious solution to the empty buildings problem: Rezone them as residential and convert the buildings into housing. There are massive housing crises in every major city in North America. Turning downtown office buildings into downtown condos would be massively lucrative for their owners (who preferred to develop them as commercial because it yielded a better return per square foot, but now they're getting those same returns without needing any office space) while also facilitating higher-density city design and increasing housing supply much more cheaply than doing new builds.

I've outright told my manager that if showing up in the office purely for the sake of showing up in the office is a required work activity, I'm not leaving my house before I'd normally start work. If it's a work activity, either I get paid overtime to do it outside of work hours, or it doesn't happen outside of work hours. Sure, that means ~40 minutes less actual work those days, but that's not my problem. I'm also perfectly content to be present for my actual work hours when my work legitimately needs an in-person presence, since then commuting isn't a work activity.

Well said

Good. Get your lazy asses out of your homes and GO TO WORK.

Sonicplys posted...

Good. Get your lazy asses out of your homes and GO TO WORK.

if I wasnt so fat and lazy, Id teach you a lesson for talking to me like that!

Sonicplys posted...

Good. Get your lazy asses out of your homes and GO TO WORK.

Why? What value does commuting add?

Sonicplys posted...

Good. Get your lazy asses out of your homes and GO TO WORK.

Just because my work is a room away instead of a two-hour commute away doesn't mean I'm not working. Conversely, travelling a longer distance to work doesn't mean you work any harder when you finally get there.

The only thing I really miss about going into the office more frequently is the social interaction with coworkers.