What would get you "back to the office"?

There are a lot of news articles about “back to the office”, but they recirculate the same bad ideas. Let’s provide some new ideas for the media to circulate. It may also have the effect of making the office less terrible.

I would like my work computer to do Windows updates lightning quick in the office. It currently takes weeks, in or out of the office. Stopping in for a day makes no difference, so there is no point. Now, if there was a point, I would go in.

What would get you in the office?

krayj,

My current position is 100% remote work-from-home and I took this job in 2018. It was impeccable timing and when the pandemic hit, my life/work routine barely changed at all.

Prior to that, I had an office job with a 1h 15m commute each way…not because I lived super far away, but because my office was in downwtown Seattle and commuting is a nightmare in this region.

Having an extra 2.5 hours of me-time each day is almost priceless. Not having to deal with the stresses of commuting and not having to deal with the daily scum of public transportation is priceless.

To get me to return to the office (that miserable routine)…it would take a 4-day work week, plus a significant pay increase, plus a monthly transportation stipend.

someguy3,

Teleporter. (I hate commutes.)

Smoogy,

And one that is safe on the environment.

riseuppikmin, (edited )
@riseuppikmin@hexbear.net avatar

Some things that would make me consider it:

  • Free high quality lunches every day
  • Transportation compensation in the form of both work time (if the office is poorly located) and monetary compensation for transportation expenses
  • Management improvement plan with actions they’re taking/implementing to reduce the time they’re wasting of laborers on a day-to-day basis
  • Alteration of the company structure to force a large percentage (simple majority) of ownership to workers to push back against reactionary and profit-driven anti-labor whims of shareholders
  • Services/compensation that complete tasks that previously I could do during downtime at home
  • Yearly inflation-pegged CoL raises that apply to every laborer in the company before salary raises are made
  • Massive investment in in-office employee training programs in the form of role-based training that is chosen by laborers in that particular role/function

If every single one of these things were implemented I would then still probably leave the place for another WFH job if we didn’t use our new ownership powers to revert back to WFH immediately.

dom, (edited )

Youd give up ownership of the company and extremely employee focused culture, guaranteed favourable yearly increases, as well as the company paying for you to get personal stuff done professionally in order to stay working from home?

This sounds incredibly reactionary and illogical.

riseuppikmin, (edited )
@riseuppikmin@hexbear.net avatar

I say at the end that we’d probably immediately use those powers to revert back to better working conditions (WFH).

I can’t see any scenario where this doesn’t happen immediately and was mostly just riffing at the absurdity of thinking companies would implement these things (outside of maybe free lunches) in order to empower labor (to the company’s shareholders’ detriment) willingly.

Pacers31Colts18,

Desperation. I’d have to be fired from my job and begging for work.

Cold_Brew_Enema,

Double my salary. Even then It’d be tough. Working from home has so many benefits. Plus my entire team is in a different state, so going into the office would be pointless.

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

My commute was, at best, 30 minutes each way driving myself. Public transportation would easily double that time and could easily be even worse.

Compensate me for that time at my full rate of pay or higher plus IRS mileage and I will START thinking about it.

My work environment also matters. Open floor plans suck ass and kill productivity. Pony up the money and give everyone offices with doors that close. My productivity at home is much higher because I am not sitting on a busy aisle across from a noisy meeting room.

I do miss being around people, I feel more isolated doing wfh. But the tradeoffs are pretty dismal against going back to the office.

vettnerk,

I sometimes have to. Not because someone tells me to, but because my physical presence is actually needed.

Sometimes I have to fly in from my middle-of-nowhere home office because whatever system I was troubleshooting wasn’t fixable via VPN. And said system can be anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t really matter where I live.

So returning to an office based work location? Yeah, that ain’t happening…

Shaggy1050,

As a small business owner: nothing. My employees have been extremely productive being able to work from home. We already drive more than the average job. Driving to the office just watses time and money for everyone. We use our office now for storage more than anything else.

belated_frog_pants,

A 50% salary increase. I lose hours a week commuting, thats my life being taken away.

Not to mention getting sick because co-workers come in sick, the loudness of stupid open office spaces, douchebags who wont bathe before work…

The office sucks ass and my house is a much better environment for me working.

jeena,
@jeena@jemmy.jeena.net avatar

If it was very close, like under 10min bicycling, and if I had my own office room like the director/CEO has. I hate open plan offices with a passion.

yenahmik,

If my whole team was based out of the same office and we coordinated the days we were there to have in person meetings. I don’t see any reason to be 100% in the office, though 1-2 days a week in this scenario would be nice.

My team is spread out all over the place, so it makes no sense to go to the office just to be on WebEx the whole time anyways.

katharta,

I’m in this boat too. Being at the office feels so fucking pointless. One other guy on my team in my city, but I haven’t seen him in months since when I’m there he’s not and vice versa. It’s so silly.

AttackBunny,

Absolutely nothing. I don’t think even money could do it for me at this point. Aside from all the obvious reasons to hate commuting and then sitting for 8 hours doing maybe 2 hours of work, I have never been healthier.

I have chronic migraines. Well, I used to(?). I haven’t had a single bad migraine in years. Yeah, I’ve still had a couple in the last few years, but they didn’t put functioning at a complete standstill. I wasn’t stuck in bed, hoping for death. The lack of artificial light is a big deal. The not having to stress myself out by commuting, then being stuck there is also another

On top of that, I eat 1000% better, easier. I can exercise instead of commuting. There’s literally no benefit to working in an office for me, but it has a metric fuckton of drawbacks.

theragu40,

sitting for 8 hours doing maybe 2 hours of work

This is funny, and something I’ve thought about and talked about with coworkers a lot. When I first started permanent WFH at the beginning of COVID, I used to feel really guilty about doing random chores and stuff around the house during the workday. I felt like I always had to be “on” trying to busy myself or whatever, even if there wasn’t really work to do.

Over time as we have done a partial return to office and I realized I do even less work on the days we go in, I have done a lot of reflection on the way we used to work when we were 100% in the office pre-covid. My conclusion is that on any given day most people were doing between 1-4 hours of actual work, and the rest of the time was spent wandering around, bullshitting, taking walks, browsing the Internet, etc. And everyone thought that was just fine. But a solid half of most days was literally wasted doing nothing productive at all.

So these days I have shifted my attitude to one that is focused on getting my assigned work done, and being somewhat flexible on meeting times and when I can accomplish things. In return I don’t feel guilty if I need to mow the lawn or do some laundry during the day. I have a smartphone and I get notifications. If there is something urgent I’ll drop what I’m doing to handle it. If it can wait, I finish up then take care of it. It’s greatly helped my sanity and I think it’s improved my work, too. We do go to the office once a week or so but I honestly plan to get almost nothing accomplished on those days and consider it a bonus if we do get work done.

AttackBunny,

I typed out a long reply, and idk where it went but the highlights are

I saw the bullshit of it back in the 90s when I started working. I had MANY arguments with my boomer mother about it. Of course her opinion was shut up, put my head down, and do whatever they say, to keep my job. My opinion was fuck that fire me.

I have never had a job (for someone else) where I couldn’t 100% complete it, accurately in 2 hours a day, max. Often less.

I’m self employed now, and I have never been healthier, happier, or more mentally stable. I have two chronic conditions, that can be/are debilitating, which have never been better controlled. I know I can’t be alone on that.

WFH is 100% better for everyone, and those that WANT to go back to the office, should work that out with their employer. WFH has shown to improve ever metric on the workers lives, and not to mention the reduction in pollution and road congestion.

Lemmylaugh,

How about a raise?

Jimbo,
@Jimbo@yiffit.net avatar

Why do you have such a hard on for people going back to the office?

Lemmylaugh,

Trying to make people understand all perspective to avoid echo chambers. Reading this thread you’d think everyone will March hand in hand to wfm when reality is that everyone will cave at some point which is exactly what the post is asking( the answer is mostly for money though)

AttackBunny,

Read my second sentence. I literally couldn’t have spoon fed it to you any more.

treadful,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

That bunny attack though

GARlactic,

Wait you guys are allowed to work remote full time?

nudnyekscentryk,
@nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info avatar

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I work as an IT guy for a small business (6 people total) and I honestly prefer working in the office:

  • it’s easier to focus, I’m much more effective than when doing work at home, despite 95% of my work being possible to be done remotely
  • I like most of the 5 people I work with
  • I prefer separating life and work: I go to the office, do the work, go home and don’t think about it until the next time I’m over there. I wouldn’t like to associate my apartment with the mundane tasks I sometimes have to do for work

Also the commute isn’t bad because I live in a well-connected district in a European capital. It’s a 12 minute door-to-door bus ride for me, I don’t even bother driving.

DivineChaos100,
@DivineChaos100@hexbear.net avatar

Nothing. Been working from home for 4 years and wouldnt go back for nothing.

Okay, maybe if we had 2 pizza fridays a week.

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