First day back in the office after almost an entire year working from home

[gladman]

;n327905]I don't get it, just tell them straight up "I will not be coming back in full time, meetings and events, sure. Five days a week, no."

I've set my whole team on 'if you need to physically be here, great. Be here. If you hate your wife and want to come here to get out of the house, great be here. Otherwise, work at home. As long as the work gets done and everyone is happy (ish) with us, we'll stay this way forever (or until I retire)

We started working from home in late January after I got my first briefing about what this might be like. I wanted to resolve all the issues before it became common. The result was good. We ordered stuff before it was gone and were running smoothly when all the shutdowns came.

 

[Guinness]

If I could do construction layout from home I would. No layoffs at all during COVID. Had to stay home a few times waiting for test results when some idiot would show up on site after testing positive. I wish all office workers could choose their own path and stay home, commuting during the heart of the pandemic was awesome, and cops were not pulling anyone over for speed alone.

 

[Little Red Zuk]

Before the rona, my boss was getting to have me only come into the office 1 or 2 days a week, anyway, but then my time was to be primarily knocking on customer doors. Since the rona took out the outside sales rep, I've been on the phone sales and tech support working from home. We have a couple people that are in the office everyday, but since Washington re-shutdown, it was kind of "If you don't have to come in, don't." Nice not having that 3 hours a day in the truck.

 

[woods]

I'd be up for a rotating schedule of some sort. Two days at home, three days in the office, etc. Even better during hunting season.

 

[inthefield]

I've been going in as needed for the last year, it's been nice, and our team has been far more productive. There's been talk of some sort of integration plan, but it hasn't really panned out. I've told multiple levels of management that I'll consider coming back in when I can walk into a proper sit-down restaurant for my lunch hour and order a meal as I demand it. This fat ass right here doesn't believe in sandwiches and cold leftovers.

 

[Slander]

I have to go into work each day, but no office. My wife has been working from home, and pre covid her ass backwards company that still thinks it's the 80s never would have let her work from home in a different state. Now they don't even know if they will ever go back to the office, she would never go back in outside of special meetings as she's 13hrs from the HQ anyway. Now they are starting the "regionally adjusted compensation" discussions, that would chop her pay in close to half, she thinks at which point she would just quit and find a brainless job locally instead of the meat grinder she's in now.

 

[YotaAtieToo]

I've been curious how people handled this?

Do you wake up at the same time and start work at the same time you normally would? Take breaks, lunch?

I'm assuming that's not true since I just heard a thing on the radio about how people shouldn't work from their bed

 

[Surveyboy]

Luckly everyone has jobs and isn't trying to find a new job or their first professional job.

working from home is going to fuck a lot of people in the end.

most all who think its awesome to work from home already had a decent office job or steady career. how many people are going to give a grad with no real work experience a home office setup and say 'enjoy!' with attempts to train them on the subtleties of some points of the job via zoom?

I know some jobs can be done from home. I think a good balance is to mix some office time and home time. Couple friends of mine who are higher up in management, its great.... but I ask, so who are you grooming to be a manager like people did for you? and crickets.

 

[woods]

I've been curious how people handled this?

Do you wake up at the same time and start work at the same time you normally would? Take breaks, lunch?

I'm assuming that's not true since I just heard a thing on the radio about how people shouldn't work from their bed

I was in the garage most of the time working on my motorcycles. Completely rebuilt a motor for my motorcycle.

 

[Sceep]

Do you wake up at the same time and start work at the same time you normally would? Take breaks, lunch?

I used to wake up @ 5:30 to be in the office @ 7.
Now I wake up @ 6:40 to be in the home office @ 7.

Never really took breaks before, but if i needed to go take a walk or run an errand i just went and did it. Same thing now.
Lunch is grab some grub and get back to work, same as always.

 

[Levigarrett76]

I used to wake up @ 5:30 to be in the office @ 7.
Now I wake up @ 6:40 to be in the home office @ 7.

Never really took breaks before, but if i needed to go take a walk or run an errand i just went and did it. Same thing now.
Lunch is grab some grub and get back to work, same as always.

SAME HERE, and work till around 5 and try to hit a stopping point and not have 1 hr drive home. I would only come down stairs for lunch break And i was able to knock out a workout during the day. Do a set, work while resting, rinse & repeat.:rolleyes:

 

[Sceep]

work till around 5 and try to hit a stopping point and not have 1 hr drive home.

Thats been one of the more difficult things for me (and many co-workers), STOPPING for the day. I'll catch myself still hammering on something 8-9pm. in 20 years at the office I have NEVER done that.

 

[Levigarrett76]

Luckly everyone has jobs and isn't trying to find a new job or their first professional job.

working from home is going to fuck a lot of people in the end.

most all who think its awesome to work from home already had a decent office job or steady career. how many people are going to give a grad with no real work experience a home office setup and say 'enjoy!' with attempts to train them on the subtleties of some points of the job via zoom?

I know some jobs can be done from home. I think a good balance is to mix some office time and home time. Couple friends of mine who are higher up in management, its great.... but I ask, so who are you grooming to be a manager like people did for you? and crickets.

wait you mean people that come out of college arent totally ready and knowledge equipped to go to work?

I Agree on a balance.

 

[zlathim]

I've been curious how people handled this?

Do you wake up at the same time and start work at the same time you normally would? Take breaks, lunch?

I'm assuming that's not true since I just heard a thing on the radio about how people shouldn't work from their bed

I wake up at 6am to go into the office and be there by 7am.

When I am working from home, I generally wake up at about 8am and start work about 8am. I have my office phone forwarded to my cell phone, so earlier if someone calls and wakes me up. I take calls until about 7pm or whenever I decide I'm no longer answering work calls.

If I have an active project, I work until about 5pm and call it a day. When I am slow, I work around the house or in the garage and just keep tabs on email and the phone.

I don't really take breaks or lunch if I am busy. I can make a sammich and eat it while I work, so I rarely take an actual lunchbreak unless I am meeting a friend at a restaraunt.

The main difference is during the slow times. Sometimes when I am in the office, I will just surf the net or fuck around doing nothing. When I am at home, i feel like I need to produce something every day to justify my existence. I probably do more busy work from home than when I am in the office.

 

[ScottRS]

I've been curious how people handled this?

Do you wake up at the same time and start work at the same time you normally would? Take breaks, lunch?

I'm assuming that's not true since I just heard a thing on the radio about how people shouldn't work from their bed

Work is the same hours now as it was when I had a commute, but I can wake up an hour later and be at work on time now. Leaving on time has never been a real push, but the afternoons have been slower as far as work to do, so it's usually easier now to leave on time than it was when business was healthier.

Smaller breaks were nonexistent before, same now. Lunch, I have to make a conscious decision to take or I just work through it, same as before. If I'm in the actual cube farm, breaks and lunch are much longer, more scheduled, and the day less productive.

I don't work from bed unless I'm in a hotel room.

When in the field, some days are 9-5, some are 2am-9pm. Field was close to 80% of my job pre-coronapocalypse.

 

[Rerock]

I've been curious how people handled this?

Do you wake up at the same time and start work at the same time you normally would? Take breaks, lunch?

I'm assuming that's not true since I just heard a thing on the radio about how people shouldn't work from their bed

My dogs are my alarm clock now. Luckily they wake up at the same time my alarm clock used to go off.

I just login and start working 2hrs early each day, but fuck off 2hrs during 'work' so it all balances out.

 

[SomeGuy]

Biggest change is no getting ready in the morning...it's just get up, take a piss, and fire up the laptop.

Lunch is go downstairs and eat something decent, sometimes cook, sometimes leftovers, but decent food and take it easy...but whenever that's done it's just back up and back at it.

End of day I usually stop working on my own shit around 5, but leave email/teams open and answer shit after hours which I'd do anyway.

My drive was always short (10 min) but I'd go home for lunch when I was in the office because it was nice to get away for an hour. Even with the short commute, I'm probably saving around 1.5 hours per day of just getting ready and to/from the office. It's also great not having to leave the house when the weather is cold and shitty.

 

[welndmn]

EVERYONE needs to go back.
You can't be the person saying you only want to work from home yet you want everything else to open back up.

I just see this a lot, people that I work with complain that they have to come into work and they are more effective at home, but then also bitch that the movies, food, theme parks are all closed down.

 

[Provience]

EVERYONE needs to go back.
You can't be the person saying you only want to work from home yet you want everything else to open back up.

I just see this a lot, people that I work with complain that they have to come into work and they are more effective at home, but then also bitch that the movies, food, theme parks are all closed down.

kind of hard to operate a theme park from home, isn't it?

though I do agree that office people generally going back to work is good for the local restaurants and such

 

[ScottRS]

EVERYONE needs to go back.
You can't be the person saying you only want to work from home yet you want everything else to open back up.

I just see this a lot, people that I work with complain that they have to come into work and they are more effective at home, but then also bitch that the movies, food, theme parks are all closed down.

You make a valid point.

I guess I'm in the "split the baby" camp; I don't want cube farmers going back to the office. I think that's dumb, and I think we've collectively proved it largely unnecessary over the last year. I do want everything opened back up (including office buildings, despite my own hate for them). I like to fantasize that the degree to which people go out from the office for lunch, that would be gone, would be offset by the savings on not-commuting, so people would have more money to eat out, and it'd equalize (approximately) for the restaurant industry in-general, but I'm probably wrong there. I don't want offices (or anything else) mandated shut-down at all, I want the "old guard" that thinks a big shiny expensive office building full of people means success, to realize it doesn't, and move away from that model. But I also realize that humanity has hundreds of years of "success is in the city" ingrained into our mindset, and that I'm tilting at windmills on this point.

 

[gladman]

EVERYONE needs to go back.
You can't be the person saying you only want to work from home yet you want everything else to open back up.

I just see this a lot, people that I work with complain that they have to come into work and they are more effective at home, but then also bitch that the movies, food, theme parks are all closed down.

I think the overall market should decide. My daughter's company has no plans to 'go back' to all the ants in the anthill. Most of the folks have actually moved (she moved to oregon) and will telecommute from now on.

 

[TRINDU]

Wait, yall have jobs? Like report to someone else?

*walks from office to kitchen in underwear to eat lunch*

 

[mobil1syn]

I think the overall market should decide. My daughter's company has no plans to 'go back' to all the ants in the anthill. Most of the folks have actually moved (she moved to oregon) and will telecommute from now on.

there are going to be a lot of smaller local economies that are going to be ruined because of this.

 

[woods]

Wait, yall have jobs? Like report to someone else?

*walks from office to kitchen in underwear to eat lunch*

Spotted the Democrat.

 

[DirtRoads]

100% remote companies can work just fine, they just need to embrace it and run. My BIL works for an accounting firm that is completely 100% remote. They supply the employees with whatever office type things they need including internet, Spotify, desks. All that shit

Once every quarter, they are all flown in by the company to a conference where they can have meetings or whatever and then away they go

When he started there two or three years ago, it looked like some hilarious unsustainable millennial BS. The company’s growth speaks for itself, it works great.

 

[woods]

I'd think not having to pay the overhead alone would be making cube farms rejoice at working from home.

 

[SomeGuy]

I'd rather working from home situations to be the solution for climate change (millions less commuting and whatnot), than most of the other ways the government tries to change it.

 

[zlathim]

You make a valid point.

I guess I'm in the "split the baby" camp; I don't want cube farmers going back to the office. I think that's dumb, and I think we've collectively proved it largely unnecessary over the last year. I do want everything opened back up (including office buildings, despite my own hate for them). I like to fantasize that the degree to which people go out from the office for lunch, that would be gone, would be offset by the savings on not-commuting, so people would have more money to eat out, and it'd equalize (approximately) for the restaurant industry in-general, but I'm probably wrong there. I don't want offices (or anything else) mandated shut-down at all, I want the "old guard" that thinks a big shiny expensive office building full of people means success, to realize it doesn't, and move away from that model. But I also realize that humanity has hundreds of years of "success is in the city" ingrained into our mindset, and that I'm tilting at windmills on this point.

Well said. I agree.

 

[ScottRS]

I'd rather working from home situations to be the solution for climate change (millions less commuting and whatnot), than most of the other ways the government tries to change it.

I'm shocked that more of the "we're doing everything to save the planet" companies aren't on this bandwagon too. Add in the reduced overhead of having offices that actually have a 10% of staff capacity instead of a 70% of staff capacity, it seems a no-brainer to me. Green cred, less expense, I'd bet the corporate side is still money-ahead even if the cube farmers are collectively 10-20% less productive at home than in-office.

 

[Bggrnchvy]

I never left (hard to manage a manufacturing and maintenance group from home even if I could do the design work there) but I've been really enjoying the lack of traffic compared to previous. I do a lot of work from the house in the early mornings or evenings because of time zones, and I can really understand how a significant number of people probably do not need to come into an office daily.

My wife is still at home and has been since last March. Her position has been redesignated as primarily offsite, they are even getting rid of the building she used to go to periodically. From now on she is at home working or on site at the retailer HQ she is assigned to. So, it's official, she is never going back.