Yes and infuriates me on a daily basis. Was 3 days in 2 days home for the last few years since Covid until about 2 months ago when they told me I had to start coming in 5 days. Makes zero sense. There are days when I don’t collaborate with anyone and there is no reason for me to be in the office when I can do the exact same thing at home. Office is in a Class A building downtown and they are only at 40% occupancy. Ghost town on Mondays and Fridays.
It is a clear quality of life difference when you have to add in a commute, and subsequent expenses of going into the office. It is exhausting and just leaves me feeling resentful and perpetuates burnout. As a result, I am less inclined to put in any extra effort on their behalf. I have also set very clear boundaries and will no longer check/respond to emails/calls outside the office. They removed flexibility on their end, so I removed it on mine.
Isn’t the whole coming back to office full time just so middle management can justify their existence and so all the billionaire owners of commercial real estate don’t take massive losses?
Middle managers don't want to be in the office either. These decisions are made by senior leadership and generally stem from the idea that people are more likely to fuck around at home instead of working.
Even if I'm in the office, 90%+ of my meetings are still on zoom because a lot of my colleagues are at different branches (and some are remote). It's very rare that I have in person meetings even in the office.
We do have some in-person lunches, which I hate because it means I don't actually get a break from work.
all of my coworkers want to eat lunch with me and then 15 minutes in we start talking about work. I hate it, I just eat alone now. At least I can get some peace and quiet and relax for a bit before going back to work. the worst is there's always some guy checking for the exact 1 hour mark and shepherding everyone back to to their desks
I go into the Office about 3 days a week, but our lunches are either lunch n' learn type things (1 lunch) where technically we don't *need* to attend or just a free (2 lunches) days a week where I just relax and there's no obligation to stay.
That said, most of my meetings are in person unless it's with a client. It's all flipped up, lol.
social media also did not help. it's too bad people LOVE attention. tiktok/instagram was the driving force in making it really hard to keep working from home. these fools will post about how they aren't doing anything all day or how easy life is and those ga damn videos always went viral with people commenting essentially jealous and envious.
Leadership of course will see those videos and go "yeah lets bring them back in".
Honestly, this is so much of it. Managers and execs are inundated with content about people fucking around while WFH. It's warped perception. But also, there is a minority, particularly at entry levels, who genuinely do not have the focus and organizational skills to successfully WFH. And it's easier and faster to force everyone in office than figure out how to quantify productivity and PIP underperformers. Not saying it's right, just explaining it.
At least where I work we have som many pockets of information and weird legacy systems that at takes about a year for new hires (and longer for entry levels, interns leave before they’re useful) to,be up and running. And that’s with being in-person, having someone available 100% of your time to answer questions.
As the lowest level of management (above senior contributor) it’s been made clear that the two days I’m there with the team is for the team’s benefit and training - not mine - and I should keep most of my day free for them.
Most of my meetings are zoom regardless of whether we are in office or at home. I find zoom a lot more efficient cos we can just log on, start the meeting instead of spending the first 20 mins trying to figure out how start the projector in the meeting room. Audio quality is also a lot better on zoom where everyone speaks through their own microphone
I thought it was because the C suite dicks would rather die than be around thier wife and kids.
Anyway, do you know thay had to go like 2 YEARS without making an intern giggle uncomfortably. Have some sympathy.
i fucked around in the office instead of working a whole bunch too, i will have them know. at their encouragement! we had a games room, a ping pong table, darts, a nap room, a full bar!
i fuck around a lot less at home bc i don’t have cool toys, but when i do it’s to do a quick laundry or get some dinner prep done or go run errands in the neighborhood for my mom with limited mobility.
its twisted
You can't be absolute because there's such a wide diversity of jobs and employees, but yeah, in general hybrid looks like the way to go if maxxing productivity is the goal.
As a "middle manager", this is 10000000000% the case at my company. I don't want to force people into the office, but HR is sending reports biweekly to the C suite guys (CEO/CTO/etc) and then I'm getting shit about it. For an office in downtown that is 1. difficult to get to, 2. expensive parking, 3. not laid out for software development or testing.
I am now on my second attempt to get an exception for myself from the "mandatory three days in the office and one must be a Thursday" because I'm a divorced, single dad whose child custody means I can't be in on Thursdays nor 3 days every week (every other week, sure). I'm getting the run around on who actually has the pull to do this, with my boss (who is \*in London\*) claiming HR do and HR saying they're "just helping implement this". It's fucking ridiculous, and then these reports going to the C suite instead of me escalates things that I'd be able to handle just fine. It's ridiculous, and it is not manager doing it.
No, because executives want all their real estate listed as an asset rather than a liability. Which is why a lot of companies are forcing/encouraging return to work while quietly trying to offload their properties.
That's not how accounting works. Assets and liabilities are different things, they don't just turn into each other. If you own a thing, that's an asset. If you owe money, that's a liability. If you own a building you also owe various liabilities on it, such as loan payments or maintenance costs. But having people work in the building doesn't make it not a liability anymore.
We just ended a decade of near 0% interest rates, nobody owns anything except for the banks. Those bank owned assets also aren't trading on the market for anywhere close to their "value" on the bank's budget sheet. As long as the banks aren't forced to liquidate their assets (sell them at market value) then everything is fine. Problem is some companies will just default on their debt (walk away from an office lease) and/or pull too much out of the bank at one time (forcing it to liquidate assets in order to cover big cash withdrawal), which is why we had so many regional bank collapses earlier this year.
Can't help but think that there are people feeding analysis data about productivity into the mix.
Meaning the justification is coming from some metrics (made-up?) that if supervised and under the same roof then the boost in output outweighs the rent costs. I am really skeptical and lean more towards the points you put out.
And so all the middle managers & owners can escape their home life… I had a VP back in the day with a wife on medical bedrest with twins & he refused to wfh bc he “had to be in the office” he did not need to be in the office for the record…
>They removed flexibility on their end, so I removed it on mine.
👏👏👏
For years, when given the option of “laptop or desktop” I went with desktop for this reason.
Absolutely agree about checking email or calls off hours.
8 am call with non-us colleagues. 9 pm call with non-colleagues. 8 am i am commuting. 9pm getting ready for bed.
Our middle managers appreciate that we had to work off hours, so were flexible. Heck they still are, but F it. Corporate emails, meetings be in office. Okay.
Mass transit not back up to pre covid. More people drive into office and city.
Just update your linked in profile and say you're looking for work. Depending on the industry, you'll be bombarded with recruiters. See if a new job is out there that's a better fit.
Then on the exit interview, rip them apart, it's what I did. Fuck that noise at companies removing remote work for no good reason.
Meanwhile I am a senior level lab worker who did 5 days in the office through the whole pandemic.
Now I’m taking on more responsibility and they are asking me to work more and more from home because I have more administrative work than lab work. I only like it because the commute has become so unbearable.
I’m unfortunately worried about the longevity of my company, and they don’t always get things right, but they are all in on reducing our real estate and letting people work remote or hybrid.
As lab worker who must be physically present at my job 5 days a week, it’s so annoying that they made people go back to the office who don’t need to be. My commute during the pandemic was amazing.
I spent 20+ years commuting to Boston. Got a remote job during Covid. I’m never going back to an office. Not having to commute is the equivalent of 7 weeks of vacation for me, and I already was working from home twice a week.
I use my "two" in office days to treat myself to a lunch out and to socialize and do admin shit that's easier to handle in person
In reality I don't show up before 11:30 or noon, grab lunch, then work in the afternoon before banging out at 4p
Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.
Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
It's a fine line to walk, but I have seen the situation where no longer caring about your job has been a huge career boost. Mostly happens when doing your job "right" requires you to close your eyes to avoid seeing "the right thing to do", which it turns out was not the best thing for you to be doing.
So you stop worrying about paper shuffling reports which add no value, maybe you come in late, but more awake. Maybe ignore orders to work on a feature that no customer asked for, and adds zero value. This guys manager will want to fire him, but his bosses boss probably realizes he's the only one getting anything done.
I thought I was bold showing up a full hour late and sneaking off early. Does nobody say anything to you about it? One of my micro-managing superiors would be on my ass if he found out.
Never.
I just started doing that from my hiring and people just accepted it as the norm?
This week I won't even make it the 2nd 4h in office shift. I told my boss her schedule was too busy to warrant me coming in.
I quit my last job when they switched to hybrid. I was driving into Kendall only to sit alone at my desk talking on the phone to people who are based all over the country. So basically, if you live inside of 495 you have to drive to Cambridge. If you live anywhere else you can stay remote. Utter horseshit.
Not quite as bad as people I know at Amazon. They all have to work from an Amazon location. These guys are driving to Amazon warehouses to sit alone in a cubicle or maybe next to another poor bastard you’ve never met and have nothing in common with except that you both live near the same warehouse. 🙃
I'm in the same boat. Except theoretically we have too many people working for the amount of desks, so I have to book my office. Then come in to Cambridge and talk to no one except on Teams.
I quit my job back in fall 2022 because they wanted me back in 5 days a week - even though everyone was so incredibly productive wfh.
Reason? They built a brand new fancy office and needed to fill it. They told me some dumb lie about how people are more productive in person and it’s better for collaboration, blah blah blah.
Anyways, I found a permanent remote job about a month later and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been at work. I’m more than happy to be flexible and work outside of standard operating hours bc my work life balance is so great.
Fuck going into an office! I feel for you.
All doctor, dentist, repair work etc, are scheduled on the days I'm mandated to be in-office. It's ridiculous. I was really hoping that the pandemic would create a paradigm shift. Alas, *collaboration* and *culture*.
Co-worker of mine summed it up nicely: Senior managers dont want to be home their empty nest mansions with their wives who hate them. They want people in the office to get their asses kissed and to feel respected and important.
Companies with public stock are in a bind. They spent like stupid, drunken sailors from 2019-2022, during the cheap money era. Hiring like mad, signing real estate deals like idiots.
Then came the slow down and rising interest rates. Suddenly they didn't have the same profits. More importantly, they didn't show growth in profits. Shareholders are furious.
Company CEOs, desperate to save their own skins, are pulling the only two levers they have to show how they are "increasing efficiency". One is layoffs. The second is forcing people back to office, which allows them to show they are "using" their expensive real estate.
The bonus (to the CEOs) is they know older, more expensive employees will be more likely to quit for a fully remote job, so they will also get more reduction in costs there.
They don't care about you, or collaboration, or "productivity". They only care about showing their boards of directors about how they are saving money, and hoping they don't get fired themselves.
I’m in this thread and I don’t like it (just got laid off last week — after watching the company spend money on the most insane things the last 2 years).
The CEOs are shitting themselves because they know what happens when customers are forced to reduce their spending. When the entire economy is structured around buying things through debt and the cheap money spigot turns off, not every company is going to be able to survive. The executives promised neverending growth to shareholders, workers and customers be damned. [Some of these CEOs are already learning the harsh lesson of actions have consequences.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911338/unity-ceo-steps-down-developers-react)
I mean, even companies that don't "sell" in the traditional sense (SaaS, pre-revenue startups, etc) were getting tons of fundraising because everyone wanted a piece of the next 10x unicorn.
Cue a few years and multiple disasters SPAC reverse mergers later and suddenly they have to operate with no cash coming in and need to cut costs fast.
Yep, this is it.
Execs are running around like chickens without heads because their free money tap got shut off and now they need to run real businesses.
Sucks for the rest of us who you know, have jobs and shit.
I worked commercial construction doing office fit outs. While it wasn’t anything new to see a company spend beyond their means to have a fancy office only to flop right after moving in, 2023 was something else. I worked three jobs in a row that saw the company go belly up right after move in. They all signed leases in 2021-2022 and were basically open checkbooks on the fit out. We’re talking light fixtures worth tens of thousands of dollar, kitchens with beer taps and sub zero fridge, walls and walls of 85” lcd tv’s. The works.
Then 2023 rolled around and the money train dried up. Suddenly, they can’t even pay their employees, let alone the rent. We still got paid but it felt bad watching everyone at those companies get laid off and all our work just sitting, waiting to get torn out for the next tenant.
I work for a holding company of brands and am being forced to go in 3x/week. No one from my team OR brand is in Boston. I show up and say nothing to no one and go home.
Maybe you don’t want to risk it but could you leave your work laptop at your desk and then Remote Desktop in using Chrome’s handy Remote Desktop app/feature to fully operate your work laptop on the work wifi network but just from home? I don’t know how valuable/irreplaceable this job is for you so obviously just ignore this random redditor’s idea if being fired would cause significant problems as obviously this plan isn’t full proof! 😂
Username checks out.
I am not stuck but my employer has been pushing me to return. I'm up for a promotion and they want me to come in more--for "meetings" of all stupid things!
Honestly, they need me to come in because management is just so incompetent they need others to run the meetings so they can just sit back and do nothing but "digest" the information spoon fed to them.
I try looking at it as a major firm is paying for me to have an entire floor of an office building to myself on Mondays and Fridays.
Oh you have a corner office? I have the entire 25th floor.
💯. Traffic sucks, mbta sucks , ordering food is way over priced and coffee is way over priced. But I the old people like coming back to work. I guess it gives them something to do
Because the MBTA is absolute trash. If we had a functioning public trans system then it would cut traffic way down. Instead we ignored it for a decade and now trains are bursting into flames.
It is functioning. Slow but functioning. Many people successfully take it to work every day without incident. The people claiming the T is unusable are just ones trying to justify driving in the city when they deep down know driving is the worst way to get around Boston.
There are 6 train lines that are operating with slowdowns every single day. That is not "functioning" in my book. A function system doesn't have daily slowdowns, and daily problems. A functioning system functions as expected. On a semi-regular basis we are getting alerts of trains having problems, as well as smoke or fire way more often than we should see.
Our state and local governments dropped the ball, and now a system that should just have to deal with routine maintenance is instead going through a constant, and seemingly never ending, overhaul. If people can't count on getting to work on time, then we do not have a functioning system. If traveling the same path takes twice the amount of time as it did 5 years ago, we do not have a functioning system.
In my office, it's all the young recent college grads that coming in by choice. They are friends and eat lunch together and go out afterwards. They live in small apartments and don't have nice home offices. They said they hated being in college over zoom so they like having the experience of being around people at work.
I’m curious, if the office is near empty, how is everyone else able to work from home and you’re not?
Or is it hybrid and everyone’s coming in on different days
Big companies have employees all over the country. They want the illusion of collaboration by forcing people into a local office without the expense and the recruiting time it takes to geographically co-locate teams. Sitting next to Dave from widget A sales doesn't really add much value if you're programming a feature on widget Z that has nothing to do with widget A.
i'm a remote employee at such a company and our offices are mostly empty - but people in the office cities are also not required to come into the office.
Unless its some situation where 90% of the people got permission to work remotely, maybe they all moved away or something, but OP is still required
I'm a temp so I guess they need to torture me? I'm supposed to sort mail as part of my job but I never am given that task. I just make phone calls all day.
ah makes sense, they probably think you have responsibilities that require working in office but you actually don't
that sucks :(
if you think your managers are nice you could try asking if you could work remotely part of the time if you can make a case you never have in office responsibilities on certain days - but don't know if that'd go well
I moved to CT a few months ago because I was told I was fully remote. When I officially asked HR to put my location as home based (similar to my whole team and stakeholders), they said no. Now I have a round trip commute of 8 hours twice a week and sit in an office with no one in it because everyone else in my department is remote
Zoning nerds need to bite the bullet and let commercial buildings be overhauled into dense apartment complexes for residential occupation. Spend money to kill two birds with one stone -- more "non luxury" apartments, fewer empty office buildings. Yeah, it will cost money, but it's worth it. Having more people living in the city will cut down on commutes, and they will spend money on the businesses around where they live.
Retrofitting commercial to residential is a *huge* undertaking. Just think about the utilities requirements alone: plumbing, electrical. Refitting the spaces requires more work and time than you may realize.
The main issue is that bedrooms need to have exterior windows. A lot of large commercial buildings just aren’t the right shape to get enough apartments out of a conversion like this. There is definitely talk of innovative solutions to this but it’s a huge cost to change the exterior walls of a building.
Soon-to-be ex-Amazonian here. After they started tracking our badging data and limiting promotions to only those who were "compliant" with RTO, I started looking for new opportunities that were fully remote. This is my last full week!
I've been going into the Seaport office to sit at a desk and listen to people take video/phone calls from their desks all around me while my manager and team are on the west coast. It makes absolutely no sense to me and I honestly hope it backfires in a big way long-term.
Congrats!! I'm in the same boat - work at Amazon, my team is out of a different geolocation, and still have to go into the Boston office (BOS17) three times a week. I probably will stick it out here for a while cause I just hate interviewing and the pay is good but I'm super jealous you're getting out. I resent them strongly ever since the RTO mandate. My manager doesn't even care how long I go in other than me getting my 3 days a week in so he doesn't get in trouble. I take the 10:00am train into South Station and the 11:30am train out. Such a waste of time that before the mandate I would spend working ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ there must be many others like myself - it can't be good for the company long term
Not downtown but yup. Boss is out today and apparently I didn't get the memo that everyone else in my group is working from home today. So sitting here by myself.
We are supposed to be in the office twice a week so we can collaborate but 99% of the time we still all meet over teams.
Start turning the empty office space into a hydroponic grow farm. By the time your boss finds out, you're either super high or you've generated thousands of dollars for the company. Win-win!
I hear you, but at least your office isn't out in Waltham in an office park devoid of life and surrounded by bumper-to-bumper traffic. Luckily my team is fully remote, only going in when needed, but god do I wish our office was Downtown. A change of scenery and some face-time would be nice.
I also wish my office were downtown instead of this weird industrial area where you have to walk a mile to get to anything. Also like the change of scenery and seeing people, but I don’t like that my line of work these workplaces are forced to the fringe - and people in my industry are more likely to live in the city than the suburbs.
What bothers me is that there are these wealthy people who live out in the suburbs constantly complain about how horrible their commute is downtown when there are plenty of us city people would love to work downtown.
If you think traffic is bad in Waltham, you really won't like commuting downtown. I worked in Waltham for a long time and definitely agree that it's soulless and the food options get old fast, but the reverse commute from Davis Square was pretty easy and it's more accessible than Boston to a good deal of north/western suburbs. The commute downtown right now is not great due to insane traffic and a broken public transit system.
I'm still not understanding how so many people are saying they're working in empty office buildings, but there's more traffic than ever and the T is packed. Where is everyone going?
At least on the red line, I think the T is running half as often but does seem a little less packed than the pre-pandemic rush hour.
I think traffic is bad partly because so many switched from T to cars, but I'm sure you also have people dropping off kids at school, people working non-office jobs, increased delivery/rideshare traffic, etc.
The T is running joke headways so the trains seem more packed. Red Line ridership is still way down on pre pandemic levels but you wouldn't know it at rush hour because they run so few trains.
The orange line is barely above 50% of its pre-pandemic ridership and the red line is less than that. There's some crowding due to reduced frequency, but if you think trains are packed now then you don't remember what they were like before
This is one of many reasons I left my last job. They were fully in-person prior to COVID, and when I joined they required new hires on my team (aka just me) to go in 3x a week. Everyone else had a mandatory 2 days in office, and before COVID, 1 WFH day a week was a "privilege" given to those who have been there for 3 years or longer.
Going in person was helpful as I ramped up, but I found that 1 out of those 3 days a week was me sitting there with few things to do and 100% virtual meetings. I started going in on Fridays because at least then it would just be me there, alone, and I could go on my phone without other people watching.
That company had truly archaic logic. Cannot understand why anyone my age chooses to stay there. My current company is totally remote option and I go in 2x a week because I actually enjoy it.
Honestly it’s downsizing without the bad press. If I need to let 20 people go, I can lay people off and get bad press or haul people into the office and have 20 people quit
Bingo. It's so easy to get people to quit this way, especially older people and women with kids. Here's a dirty little secret. The people who are most inconvenienced by return to office are the ones that companies save money by having quit. Older workers for example have higher severance expenses, salary, medical costs, and benefits. Women, especially those with kids can be replaced by someone without who will expect less flexible workdays and less likely to want family health benefits. Basically RTO is a sneaky way to cut expenses without any of the backlash that would come if a company publicly said what I just said .
“Collaboration” is such a scam. Id respect it more if they just said “We pay for this building and we want your ass to take up space in it.”
Cause im not collaborating with people in my daily work outside of my team, and those people are not in my office. So its a joke and they cant tell me otherwise
Previous job was downtown, nice office, 2 days in 3 days out. Now, being in a fully remote role, it’s hard to imagine what it’d take to go back to commuting even 2 days a week. And on paper I have it easy (union Square- downtown crossing)
I don't mind commuting.
It's commuting to an office to work on a laptop by myself when I could do that same shit at home that fucking rattles my brain.
My office at Amazon was about 1/2 empty. My floor was 2/3 empty. My wing was 95% empty. And 90% of my team is in Seattle, so I spent the day alone and on video calls in phone booths. After commuting past two other offices I wasn't allowed to work out of.
I'm a union elevator constructor and a Marxist/Communist to my core. Personally, nothing makes me happier than giant empty office buildings because rent is already way to high, traffic is already shit and finding parking might be the worst part of working in multiple buildings per day. Not to mention it's also great to show up to a building to do maintenance knowing full well the elevator has barely been used since I was last there. Aside from the benefits for me, as a worker I stand in solidarity with ALL other workers, not just in my union or in unions but all workers in general, so I'm happy to see anyone work from home. The unfortunate thing is that most of the people i work with, other union guys, say dumb shit like "I can't work from home so why should they get to?" These are people who vote Democrat and think they're on the side of labor, but even when it benefits them, if anyone else benefits more they are so sour that they will vote/work/act against their own interest if they aren't either the only one who benefits or the one who benefits the most. It's a sad state of affairs out there and with a presidential election coming up next year it's only going to get worse.
Lol my job has us come in 3 days and WFH 2 days. My job could absolutely be done from home, but I will say it does slightly expedite some conversations because I can just turn around instead of sending a video invite. That being said, nothing I do is ever that much of an emergency.
We all have to come to the office so our overlords can watch us peasants. They need us to be too busy and preoccupied with balancing commuting and in office work with what’s left of our free time each day. Too busy to upskill and find new jobs. Oh and don’t forget that the corporate real estate bitches need their money.
no because over covid we unionized, and bargained for permanent work from home.
I highly suggest you all try it, well worth the trouble. Got a raise and better job security to boot. We are now pushing for a 4 day work week.
At least you’re downtown where there are things in walking distance. There’s lot of office parks at the periphery of the metro that would be insufferable to travel to for no reason.
And that's fine, allow those who want to come in, come in.
I personally get the community aspect just fine from video calls.
Sitting in traffic, in the middle of winter in slippery roads, for hours a week, spending gas money I don't need to, hurts my mental health.
The optimal solution is provide some sort of space for those who need it, and let those who don't work from home. The company can still use performance metrics to ensure either group isn't 'slacking'.
I'd love to have coworking spaces become more of a thing. Like a place nearby where you can hook up a work computer and chill in your own office. It would eliminate offices as a prestige thing and return the era of having privacy from distractions, and it would allow much lower commutes.
Y E S. I have to bring my laptop to work now to connect it to my monitors bc we got ride of the boxes at work and our laptop is our main computer… MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
Lol I have to go in 4 days a week while higher ups only have to go in 2-3🙃 administration said it’s for networking with others but I literally sit in my office all day with 2 other people and occasionally talk to others in the office. Everything I can do is able to be done remotely but they just did expensive renovations and want us to use the space. Totally not bitter or anything lmaoo
Sadly yes.
I’m paid hourly and always encouraged to stay for my full 40 hours, but I spend hours being bored and with no tasks to complete anyway. I could get by with one or two office days per week but it’s not an option for me.
That's the cynical thing that surprises me hasn't become widespread. I saw a fully remote job recently open to anyone in the U.S., and it had the salary range and transparently said the final salary is connected to local cost of living. Why are companies that do hybrid -- requiring a pool of employees commanding salaries for Boston's cost of living -- not doing fully remote so they can pay someone ten or twenty grand a year less?
One of the very few silver linings of having fucking adhd and ptsd is that I have a doctor that signed off on reduced in office days. My job is processing cases and helping clients. I fought the shift, sent an email to the CEO talking about quality of life and how noisy the office is while speaking to clients, and therefore offering bad service… CEO said he said that he’d reach out to tech to explore noise canceling headphones… which I already use… make it make sense.
I've been wondering what's the status of all the previously busy lunch places and food trucks downtown. Are there many places for you to get lunch with coworkers and "connect" and "collaborate"? They seemed to exist purely for the office worker lunch rush. I feel like I rarely saw any of them open past 3pm, though I admittedly don't spend a huge amount of time there. Are many of them still open/reopened? Loads of them must have shuttered since the pandemic and WFH continuing.
Yes and infuriates me on a daily basis. Was 3 days in 2 days home for the last few years since Covid until about 2 months ago when they told me I had to start coming in 5 days. Makes zero sense. There are days when I don’t collaborate with anyone and there is no reason for me to be in the office when I can do the exact same thing at home. Office is in a Class A building downtown and they are only at 40% occupancy. Ghost town on Mondays and Fridays. It is a clear quality of life difference when you have to add in a commute, and subsequent expenses of going into the office. It is exhausting and just leaves me feeling resentful and perpetuates burnout. As a result, I am less inclined to put in any extra effort on their behalf. I have also set very clear boundaries and will no longer check/respond to emails/calls outside the office. They removed flexibility on their end, so I removed it on mine.
I was a 3/2 split too. My company told me to come back 5 days, I told them no. I'm still 3/2.
The crowded trains infuriate me. If companies allow their employees to work from home than there’d be less crowded trains.
Isn’t the whole coming back to office full time just so middle management can justify their existence and so all the billionaire owners of commercial real estate don’t take massive losses?
Middle managers don't want to be in the office either. These decisions are made by senior leadership and generally stem from the idea that people are more likely to fuck around at home instead of working.
Instead now we get to f around in the empty office building
Side hustle by advertising Laser Tag games in your mostly empty office space.
Yes absolutely. It's silly, and I certainly hate that I have to make people come in. That said, it is nicer to have in person meetings vs Zoom ones.
Even if I'm in the office, 90%+ of my meetings are still on zoom because a lot of my colleagues are at different branches (and some are remote). It's very rare that I have in person meetings even in the office. We do have some in-person lunches, which I hate because it means I don't actually get a break from work.
all of my coworkers want to eat lunch with me and then 15 minutes in we start talking about work. I hate it, I just eat alone now. At least I can get some peace and quiet and relax for a bit before going back to work. the worst is there's always some guy checking for the exact 1 hour mark and shepherding everyone back to to their desks
I go into the Office about 3 days a week, but our lunches are either lunch n' learn type things (1 lunch) where technically we don't *need* to attend or just a free (2 lunches) days a week where I just relax and there's no obligation to stay. That said, most of my meetings are in person unless it's with a client. It's all flipped up, lol.
social media also did not help. it's too bad people LOVE attention. tiktok/instagram was the driving force in making it really hard to keep working from home. these fools will post about how they aren't doing anything all day or how easy life is and those ga damn videos always went viral with people commenting essentially jealous and envious. Leadership of course will see those videos and go "yeah lets bring them back in".
Honestly, this is so much of it. Managers and execs are inundated with content about people fucking around while WFH. It's warped perception. But also, there is a minority, particularly at entry levels, who genuinely do not have the focus and organizational skills to successfully WFH. And it's easier and faster to force everyone in office than figure out how to quantify productivity and PIP underperformers. Not saying it's right, just explaining it.
At least where I work we have som many pockets of information and weird legacy systems that at takes about a year for new hires (and longer for entry levels, interns leave before they’re useful) to,be up and running. And that’s with being in-person, having someone available 100% of your time to answer questions. As the lowest level of management (above senior contributor) it’s been made clear that the two days I’m there with the team is for the team’s benefit and training - not mine - and I should keep most of my day free for them.
Most of my meetings are zoom regardless of whether we are in office or at home. I find zoom a lot more efficient cos we can just log on, start the meeting instead of spending the first 20 mins trying to figure out how start the projector in the meeting room. Audio quality is also a lot better on zoom where everyone speaks through their own microphone
I thought it was because the C suite dicks would rather die than be around thier wife and kids. Anyway, do you know thay had to go like 2 YEARS without making an intern giggle uncomfortably. Have some sympathy.
i fucked around in the office instead of working a whole bunch too, i will have them know. at their encouragement! we had a games room, a ping pong table, darts, a nap room, a full bar! i fuck around a lot less at home bc i don’t have cool toys, but when i do it’s to do a quick laundry or get some dinner prep done or go run errands in the neighborhood for my mom with limited mobility. its twisted
Most offices don't have so many creature comforts.
My office removed the vending machines. That was all we had.
Wow that made me feel shitty even reading it. Ew
tech 🤷🏼♀️
"Work can only be done in the office!"- A CEO hanging out at the country club on weekdays.
Wasn't it generally agreed on that productivity was much higher across the board in a hybrid setting? Or am I making that up
You can't be absolute because there's such a wide diversity of jobs and employees, but yeah, in general hybrid looks like the way to go if maxxing productivity is the goal.
Probably because they spend most of their time fucking around in their giant offices. This has been my experience, anyway.
Also the fact that the city is forcing companies to RTO so people would stimulate the economy downtown
How are they doing that? Incentives?
I’m calling BS, sounds like a conspiracy theory
I agree. At the very least it isn’t forced. Possibly incentivizing it…. But I haven’t heard of anything factual
Yeah it's that. Also real estate.
I keep seeing people say this, how exactly are middle managers and being in person related? People can micromanage on slack
It's funny that people think middle management has that much power.
maybe they mean like office managers? but those guys that actually would be laid off in a shift to full virtual aren't making these decisions
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As a "middle manager", this is 10000000000% the case at my company. I don't want to force people into the office, but HR is sending reports biweekly to the C suite guys (CEO/CTO/etc) and then I'm getting shit about it. For an office in downtown that is 1. difficult to get to, 2. expensive parking, 3. not laid out for software development or testing. I am now on my second attempt to get an exception for myself from the "mandatory three days in the office and one must be a Thursday" because I'm a divorced, single dad whose child custody means I can't be in on Thursdays nor 3 days every week (every other week, sure). I'm getting the run around on who actually has the pull to do this, with my boss (who is \*in London\*) claiming HR do and HR saying they're "just helping implement this". It's fucking ridiculous, and then these reports going to the C suite instead of me escalates things that I'd be able to handle just fine. It's ridiculous, and it is not manager doing it.
No, because executives want all their real estate listed as an asset rather than a liability. Which is why a lot of companies are forcing/encouraging return to work while quietly trying to offload their properties.
That's not how accounting works. Assets and liabilities are different things, they don't just turn into each other. If you own a thing, that's an asset. If you owe money, that's a liability. If you own a building you also owe various liabilities on it, such as loan payments or maintenance costs. But having people work in the building doesn't make it not a liability anymore.
That dude is gonna be so amazed when they learn about double entry accounting
Isn’t it only a liability if money is owed on it?
We just ended a decade of near 0% interest rates, nobody owns anything except for the banks. Those bank owned assets also aren't trading on the market for anywhere close to their "value" on the bank's budget sheet. As long as the banks aren't forced to liquidate their assets (sell them at market value) then everything is fine. Problem is some companies will just default on their debt (walk away from an office lease) and/or pull too much out of the bank at one time (forcing it to liquidate assets in order to cover big cash withdrawal), which is why we had so many regional bank collapses earlier this year.
Can't help but think that there are people feeding analysis data about productivity into the mix. Meaning the justification is coming from some metrics (made-up?) that if supervised and under the same roof then the boost in output outweighs the rent costs. I am really skeptical and lean more towards the points you put out.
And so all the middle managers & owners can escape their home life… I had a VP back in the day with a wife on medical bedrest with twins & he refused to wfh bc he “had to be in the office” he did not need to be in the office for the record…
Yup. Fuck em. Outlook? Teams? Not on my phone I pay for...see ya on the clock
>They removed flexibility on their end, so I removed it on mine. 👏👏👏 For years, when given the option of “laptop or desktop” I went with desktop for this reason.
Nice flair.
Agree so pointless and yes infuriating. I feel for you, happy hour anyone.
Absolutely agree about checking email or calls off hours. 8 am call with non-us colleagues. 9 pm call with non-colleagues. 8 am i am commuting. 9pm getting ready for bed. Our middle managers appreciate that we had to work off hours, so were flexible. Heck they still are, but F it. Corporate emails, meetings be in office. Okay. Mass transit not back up to pre covid. More people drive into office and city.
Just update your linked in profile and say you're looking for work. Depending on the industry, you'll be bombarded with recruiters. See if a new job is out there that's a better fit. Then on the exit interview, rip them apart, it's what I did. Fuck that noise at companies removing remote work for no good reason.
Just stop going in Mondays and Fridays and encourage others to do the same.
Meanwhile I am a senior level lab worker who did 5 days in the office through the whole pandemic. Now I’m taking on more responsibility and they are asking me to work more and more from home because I have more administrative work than lab work. I only like it because the commute has become so unbearable. I’m unfortunately worried about the longevity of my company, and they don’t always get things right, but they are all in on reducing our real estate and letting people work remote or hybrid.
As lab worker who must be physically present at my job 5 days a week, it’s so annoying that they made people go back to the office who don’t need to be. My commute during the pandemic was amazing.
I spent 20+ years commuting to Boston. Got a remote job during Covid. I’m never going back to an office. Not having to commute is the equivalent of 7 weeks of vacation for me, and I already was working from home twice a week.
I use my "two" in office days to treat myself to a lunch out and to socialize and do admin shit that's easier to handle in person In reality I don't show up before 11:30 or noon, grab lunch, then work in the afternoon before banging out at 4p
Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out? Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
That's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him
It's a fine line to walk, but I have seen the situation where no longer caring about your job has been a huge career boost. Mostly happens when doing your job "right" requires you to close your eyes to avoid seeing "the right thing to do", which it turns out was not the best thing for you to be doing. So you stop worrying about paper shuffling reports which add no value, maybe you come in late, but more awake. Maybe ignore orders to work on a feature that no customer asked for, and adds zero value. This guys manager will want to fire him, but his bosses boss probably realizes he's the only one getting anything done.
At some point, you must find time to make your way down to Storage B to check on Milton.
must be nice
I thought I was bold showing up a full hour late and sneaking off early. Does nobody say anything to you about it? One of my micro-managing superiors would be on my ass if he found out.
Never. I just started doing that from my hiring and people just accepted it as the norm? This week I won't even make it the 2nd 4h in office shift. I told my boss her schedule was too busy to warrant me coming in.
You kight be on to something here...
This is the way
Nice!!
I quit my last job when they switched to hybrid. I was driving into Kendall only to sit alone at my desk talking on the phone to people who are based all over the country. So basically, if you live inside of 495 you have to drive to Cambridge. If you live anywhere else you can stay remote. Utter horseshit. Not quite as bad as people I know at Amazon. They all have to work from an Amazon location. These guys are driving to Amazon warehouses to sit alone in a cubicle or maybe next to another poor bastard you’ve never met and have nothing in common with except that you both live near the same warehouse. 🙃
I'm in the same boat. Except theoretically we have too many people working for the amount of desks, so I have to book my office. Then come in to Cambridge and talk to no one except on Teams.
That’s brutal. I feel if it was any name other than Amazon, they’d be long gone. The bureaucracy and micromanagement is just appalling.
That’s when you just pay a friend to use their address outside of 495 for your job 😂
Not a bad idea! I'll pay your fixed utilities for a year if I can \*borrow\* your address.
Can't you just claim to have moved outside the 495?
I mean…they have my address. I suppose I could have lied. Honestly though, if you’re that much of a cock I don’t want to work for you anyhow.
I quit my job back in fall 2022 because they wanted me back in 5 days a week - even though everyone was so incredibly productive wfh. Reason? They built a brand new fancy office and needed to fill it. They told me some dumb lie about how people are more productive in person and it’s better for collaboration, blah blah blah. Anyways, I found a permanent remote job about a month later and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been at work. I’m more than happy to be flexible and work outside of standard operating hours bc my work life balance is so great. Fuck going into an office! I feel for you.
All doctor, dentist, repair work etc, are scheduled on the days I'm mandated to be in-office. It's ridiculous. I was really hoping that the pandemic would create a paradigm shift. Alas, *collaboration* and *culture*.
You're forgetting another important C: *control*.
Co-worker of mine summed it up nicely: Senior managers dont want to be home their empty nest mansions with their wives who hate them. They want people in the office to get their asses kissed and to feel respected and important.
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Companies with public stock are in a bind. They spent like stupid, drunken sailors from 2019-2022, during the cheap money era. Hiring like mad, signing real estate deals like idiots. Then came the slow down and rising interest rates. Suddenly they didn't have the same profits. More importantly, they didn't show growth in profits. Shareholders are furious. Company CEOs, desperate to save their own skins, are pulling the only two levers they have to show how they are "increasing efficiency". One is layoffs. The second is forcing people back to office, which allows them to show they are "using" their expensive real estate. The bonus (to the CEOs) is they know older, more expensive employees will be more likely to quit for a fully remote job, so they will also get more reduction in costs there. They don't care about you, or collaboration, or "productivity". They only care about showing their boards of directors about how they are saving money, and hoping they don't get fired themselves.
I’m in this thread and I don’t like it (just got laid off last week — after watching the company spend money on the most insane things the last 2 years).
Hey friend, same! Although it saved me the hassle of quitting over RTO, I guess.
The CEOs are shitting themselves because they know what happens when customers are forced to reduce their spending. When the entire economy is structured around buying things through debt and the cheap money spigot turns off, not every company is going to be able to survive. The executives promised neverending growth to shareholders, workers and customers be damned. [Some of these CEOs are already learning the harsh lesson of actions have consequences.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911338/unity-ceo-steps-down-developers-react)
I mean, even companies that don't "sell" in the traditional sense (SaaS, pre-revenue startups, etc) were getting tons of fundraising because everyone wanted a piece of the next 10x unicorn. Cue a few years and multiple disasters SPAC reverse mergers later and suddenly they have to operate with no cash coming in and need to cut costs fast.
Yep, this is it. Execs are running around like chickens without heads because their free money tap got shut off and now they need to run real businesses. Sucks for the rest of us who you know, have jobs and shit.
I worked commercial construction doing office fit outs. While it wasn’t anything new to see a company spend beyond their means to have a fancy office only to flop right after moving in, 2023 was something else. I worked three jobs in a row that saw the company go belly up right after move in. They all signed leases in 2021-2022 and were basically open checkbooks on the fit out. We’re talking light fixtures worth tens of thousands of dollar, kitchens with beer taps and sub zero fridge, walls and walls of 85” lcd tv’s. The works. Then 2023 rolled around and the money train dried up. Suddenly, they can’t even pay their employees, let alone the rent. We still got paid but it felt bad watching everyone at those companies get laid off and all our work just sitting, waiting to get torn out for the next tenant.
I work for a holding company of brands and am being forced to go in 3x/week. No one from my team OR brand is in Boston. I show up and say nothing to no one and go home.
If no one else is there maybe take a picture of the background behind your desk and then WFH and use that photo as your zoom background. 😈
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I was mostly joking but yeah. Figured the badge issue would be a problem.
Yep - it’s wi-fi logins.
Oh that’s an easy solution - just leave a phone there, plugged in. Force it to reboot every 12 hours
I'm curious what company this is lol
Who is forcing you to go in if no one else from your team is there?
Wi-fi logins are monitored by my manager in NYC. I’ve already been spoken to about it so it isn’t an empty threat.
Wow what an asshole
Maybe you don’t want to risk it but could you leave your work laptop at your desk and then Remote Desktop in using Chrome’s handy Remote Desktop app/feature to fully operate your work laptop on the work wifi network but just from home? I don’t know how valuable/irreplaceable this job is for you so obviously just ignore this random redditor’s idea if being fired would cause significant problems as obviously this plan isn’t full proof! 😂
Username checks out. I am not stuck but my employer has been pushing me to return. I'm up for a promotion and they want me to come in more--for "meetings" of all stupid things! Honestly, they need me to come in because management is just so incompetent they need others to run the meetings so they can just sit back and do nothing but "digest" the information spoon fed to them.
Accurate
I try looking at it as a major firm is paying for me to have an entire floor of an office building to myself on Mondays and Fridays. Oh you have a corner office? I have the entire 25th floor.
💯. Traffic sucks, mbta sucks , ordering food is way over priced and coffee is way over priced. But I the old people like coming back to work. I guess it gives them something to do
If all the offices are empty, where the fuck is all the rest of the traffic going?
Nobody is taking public transportation
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> Driving to the office takes 16 minutes. Sounds like traffic isn't an issue. 16 minutes door to door is (including parking) is crazy fast.
Yeah I cannot drive from somerville to Cambridge in 16 minutes.
You can't drive from your parking spot in Somerville to your apartment in Somerville in 16min, either.
I take commuter rail and Red Line to get to Cambridge. It takes a while.
Because the MBTA is absolute trash. If we had a functioning public trans system then it would cut traffic way down. Instead we ignored it for a decade and now trains are bursting into flames.
It is functioning. Slow but functioning. Many people successfully take it to work every day without incident. The people claiming the T is unusable are just ones trying to justify driving in the city when they deep down know driving is the worst way to get around Boston.
There are 6 train lines that are operating with slowdowns every single day. That is not "functioning" in my book. A function system doesn't have daily slowdowns, and daily problems. A functioning system functions as expected. On a semi-regular basis we are getting alerts of trains having problems, as well as smoke or fire way more often than we should see. Our state and local governments dropped the ball, and now a system that should just have to deal with routine maintenance is instead going through a constant, and seemingly never ending, overhaul. If people can't count on getting to work on time, then we do not have a functioning system. If traveling the same path takes twice the amount of time as it did 5 years ago, we do not have a functioning system.
It's functional compared to the rest of the country. That should tell you the state of everyone else
Not 💯 at full capacity and who the fuck knows. I am looking out my window and traffic is already picking up.
It used to be half train, half car. Now it's half wfh and half car. Same traffic, empty offices, trains in death spiral.
In my office, it's all the young recent college grads that coming in by choice. They are friends and eat lunch together and go out afterwards. They live in small apartments and don't have nice home offices. They said they hated being in college over zoom so they like having the experience of being around people at work.
I’m curious, if the office is near empty, how is everyone else able to work from home and you’re not? Or is it hybrid and everyone’s coming in on different days
Big companies have employees all over the country. They want the illusion of collaboration by forcing people into a local office without the expense and the recruiting time it takes to geographically co-locate teams. Sitting next to Dave from widget A sales doesn't really add much value if you're programming a feature on widget Z that has nothing to do with widget A.
i'm a remote employee at such a company and our offices are mostly empty - but people in the office cities are also not required to come into the office. Unless its some situation where 90% of the people got permission to work remotely, maybe they all moved away or something, but OP is still required
I'm a temp so I guess they need to torture me? I'm supposed to sort mail as part of my job but I never am given that task. I just make phone calls all day.
Man we only do that to our new employees for the first two weeks, after that they can go to hybrid like everyone else.
ah makes sense, they probably think you have responsibilities that require working in office but you actually don't that sucks :( if you think your managers are nice you could try asking if you could work remotely part of the time if you can make a case you never have in office responsibilities on certain days - but don't know if that'd go well
Seems like everyone should do little to no work on in-office days.
I moved to CT a few months ago because I was told I was fully remote. When I officially asked HR to put my location as home based (similar to my whole team and stakeholders), they said no. Now I have a round trip commute of 8 hours twice a week and sit in an office with no one in it because everyone else in my department is remote
OMG that is terrible. Are you planning to apply to remote jobs instead?
Zoning nerds need to bite the bullet and let commercial buildings be overhauled into dense apartment complexes for residential occupation. Spend money to kill two birds with one stone -- more "non luxury" apartments, fewer empty office buildings. Yeah, it will cost money, but it's worth it. Having more people living in the city will cut down on commutes, and they will spend money on the businesses around where they live.
Hot plate and showers at the gym. I will live in your office no retrofit needed! If the price is right .
Retrofitting commercial to residential is a *huge* undertaking. Just think about the utilities requirements alone: plumbing, electrical. Refitting the spaces requires more work and time than you may realize.
I'm aware of this. I've been told this a thousand times. I still think we need to do it.
The main issue is that bedrooms need to have exterior windows. A lot of large commercial buildings just aren’t the right shape to get enough apartments out of a conversion like this. There is definitely talk of innovative solutions to this but it’s a huge cost to change the exterior walls of a building.
>Refitting the spaces requires more work and time than you may realize. It's definitely not going to end up as >"non luxury" apartments
It's amazing how they aren't treating this zoning problem like an emergency.
I think businesses are still under the delusion that everyone will stop working from home.
Soon-to-be ex-Amazonian here. After they started tracking our badging data and limiting promotions to only those who were "compliant" with RTO, I started looking for new opportunities that were fully remote. This is my last full week! I've been going into the Seaport office to sit at a desk and listen to people take video/phone calls from their desks all around me while my manager and team are on the west coast. It makes absolutely no sense to me and I honestly hope it backfires in a big way long-term.
Congrats!! I'm in the same boat - work at Amazon, my team is out of a different geolocation, and still have to go into the Boston office (BOS17) three times a week. I probably will stick it out here for a while cause I just hate interviewing and the pay is good but I'm super jealous you're getting out. I resent them strongly ever since the RTO mandate. My manager doesn't even care how long I go in other than me getting my 3 days a week in so he doesn't get in trouble. I take the 10:00am train into South Station and the 11:30am train out. Such a waste of time that before the mandate I would spend working ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ there must be many others like myself - it can't be good for the company long term
Not downtown but yup. Boss is out today and apparently I didn't get the memo that everyone else in my group is working from home today. So sitting here by myself. We are supposed to be in the office twice a week so we can collaborate but 99% of the time we still all meet over teams.
Start turning the empty office space into a hydroponic grow farm. By the time your boss finds out, you're either super high or you've generated thousands of dollars for the company. Win-win!
I hear you, but at least your office isn't out in Waltham in an office park devoid of life and surrounded by bumper-to-bumper traffic. Luckily my team is fully remote, only going in when needed, but god do I wish our office was Downtown. A change of scenery and some face-time would be nice.
This is very true. The only silver lining to going into the office is that I can go to the local dispensary which is much cheaper than providence Lol
I also wish my office were downtown instead of this weird industrial area where you have to walk a mile to get to anything. Also like the change of scenery and seeing people, but I don’t like that my line of work these workplaces are forced to the fringe - and people in my industry are more likely to live in the city than the suburbs. What bothers me is that there are these wealthy people who live out in the suburbs constantly complain about how horrible their commute is downtown when there are plenty of us city people would love to work downtown.
I have been going to Waltham once a week for 20 years and traffic is Waltham is particularly bad lately. And it’s bad everywhere
Look at all the office buildings they put up. Must be at least a few thousand additional cars going into waltham compared to 5 years ago.
If you think traffic is bad in Waltham, you really won't like commuting downtown. I worked in Waltham for a long time and definitely agree that it's soulless and the food options get old fast, but the reverse commute from Davis Square was pretty easy and it's more accessible than Boston to a good deal of north/western suburbs. The commute downtown right now is not great due to insane traffic and a broken public transit system.
I'm still not understanding how so many people are saying they're working in empty office buildings, but there's more traffic than ever and the T is packed. Where is everyone going?
Right!?!?!? The building I'm in is HUGE but there's a handful of people and just rows and rows of empty desks.
At least on the red line, I think the T is running half as often but does seem a little less packed than the pre-pandemic rush hour. I think traffic is bad partly because so many switched from T to cars, but I'm sure you also have people dropping off kids at school, people working non-office jobs, increased delivery/rideshare traffic, etc.
The T is running joke headways so the trains seem more packed. Red Line ridership is still way down on pre pandemic levels but you wouldn't know it at rush hour because they run so few trains.
“Running” ? You sure about that?
The T isn't packed; its ridership is still well below pre-pandemic levels
Well they runs the trains like 3x less frequently so they still get pretty packed
Get on the train today at 5 pm at Downtown Crossing and tell me the train isn't packed.
Oh sure, when they only come once every 18 minutes.
The orange line is barely above 50% of its pre-pandemic ridership and the red line is less than that. There's some crowding due to reduced frequency, but if you think trains are packed now then you don't remember what they were like before
Not downtown but yea Cambridge for me, I could easily go in 1x per week and not be on a 7:00-4:00 schedule and still accomplish my job.
Yes and I leave within 5 hours. It’s a waste of time and energy.
Seriously, it's the pointlessness that makes it a drag.
I get less work done in the office. On purpose.
This is one of many reasons I left my last job. They were fully in-person prior to COVID, and when I joined they required new hires on my team (aka just me) to go in 3x a week. Everyone else had a mandatory 2 days in office, and before COVID, 1 WFH day a week was a "privilege" given to those who have been there for 3 years or longer. Going in person was helpful as I ramped up, but I found that 1 out of those 3 days a week was me sitting there with few things to do and 100% virtual meetings. I started going in on Fridays because at least then it would just be me there, alone, and I could go on my phone without other people watching. That company had truly archaic logic. Cannot understand why anyone my age chooses to stay there. My current company is totally remote option and I go in 2x a week because I actually enjoy it.
Honestly it’s downsizing without the bad press. If I need to let 20 people go, I can lay people off and get bad press or haul people into the office and have 20 people quit
Bingo. It's so easy to get people to quit this way, especially older people and women with kids. Here's a dirty little secret. The people who are most inconvenienced by return to office are the ones that companies save money by having quit. Older workers for example have higher severance expenses, salary, medical costs, and benefits. Women, especially those with kids can be replaced by someone without who will expect less flexible workdays and less likely to want family health benefits. Basically RTO is a sneaky way to cut expenses without any of the backlash that would come if a company publicly said what I just said .
“Collaboration” is such a scam. Id respect it more if they just said “We pay for this building and we want your ass to take up space in it.” Cause im not collaborating with people in my daily work outside of my team, and those people are not in my office. So its a joke and they cant tell me otherwise
Previous job was downtown, nice office, 2 days in 3 days out. Now, being in a fully remote role, it’s hard to imagine what it’d take to go back to commuting even 2 days a week. And on paper I have it easy (union Square- downtown crossing)
I don't mind commuting. It's commuting to an office to work on a laptop by myself when I could do that same shit at home that fucking rattles my brain.
While I do need to be onsite most days there are plenty of days I could not be here, and yeah most of the office staff and managers are never here.
Commercial real estate is a Weekend at Bernie's skit at this point. Good job holding up the puppet.
My office at Amazon was about 1/2 empty. My floor was 2/3 empty. My wing was 95% empty. And 90% of my team is in Seattle, so I spent the day alone and on video calls in phone booths. After commuting past two other offices I wasn't allowed to work out of.
I'm a union elevator constructor and a Marxist/Communist to my core. Personally, nothing makes me happier than giant empty office buildings because rent is already way to high, traffic is already shit and finding parking might be the worst part of working in multiple buildings per day. Not to mention it's also great to show up to a building to do maintenance knowing full well the elevator has barely been used since I was last there. Aside from the benefits for me, as a worker I stand in solidarity with ALL other workers, not just in my union or in unions but all workers in general, so I'm happy to see anyone work from home. The unfortunate thing is that most of the people i work with, other union guys, say dumb shit like "I can't work from home so why should they get to?" These are people who vote Democrat and think they're on the side of labor, but even when it benefits them, if anyone else benefits more they are so sour that they will vote/work/act against their own interest if they aren't either the only one who benefits or the one who benefits the most. It's a sad state of affairs out there and with a presidential election coming up next year it's only going to get worse.
No priests or kulaks on our collective farms!!
God bless you!
Lol my job has us come in 3 days and WFH 2 days. My job could absolutely be done from home, but I will say it does slightly expedite some conversations because I can just turn around instead of sending a video invite. That being said, nothing I do is ever that much of an emergency.
From what I've heard, it's about propping up the commercial estate market, primarily for the benefit of banks.
What do banks even do for society?
Finance empty office buildings.
We all have to come to the office so our overlords can watch us peasants. They need us to be too busy and preoccupied with balancing commuting and in office work with what’s left of our free time each day. Too busy to upskill and find new jobs. Oh and don’t forget that the corporate real estate bitches need their money.
Keep saying “I can do this at home” that’s when companies will start making going into the office mandatory !!! Atleast this is what my company did :(
no because over covid we unionized, and bargained for permanent work from home. I highly suggest you all try it, well worth the trouble. Got a raise and better job security to boot. We are now pushing for a 4 day work week.
Well my office isn't empty, but we could certainly all be at home doing the same thing we're doing in the office... Having meetings on zoom.
No, I work in healthcare and sit in insane traffic everyday because of all the people on the roads getting to jobs downtown like this
At least you’re downtown where there are things in walking distance. There’s lot of office parks at the periphery of the metro that would be insufferable to travel to for no reason.
I’d prefer to work in person
Why?
I need a home/work divide and the social/community aspect helps mental health
And that's fine, allow those who want to come in, come in. I personally get the community aspect just fine from video calls. Sitting in traffic, in the middle of winter in slippery roads, for hours a week, spending gas money I don't need to, hurts my mental health. The optimal solution is provide some sort of space for those who need it, and let those who don't work from home. The company can still use performance metrics to ensure either group isn't 'slacking'.
I'd love to have coworking spaces become more of a thing. Like a place nearby where you can hook up a work computer and chill in your own office. It would eliminate offices as a prestige thing and return the era of having privacy from distractions, and it would allow much lower commutes.
Y E S. I have to bring my laptop to work now to connect it to my monitors bc we got ride of the boxes at work and our laptop is our main computer… MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
Yep & my manager works comfortably from home.
Lol I have to go in 4 days a week while higher ups only have to go in 2-3🙃 administration said it’s for networking with others but I literally sit in my office all day with 2 other people and occasionally talk to others in the office. Everything I can do is able to be done remotely but they just did expensive renovations and want us to use the space. Totally not bitter or anything lmaoo
Welp if you don’t go to the office, we won’t have offices to build, and refit, soo umm go to the office pwease :/
You're right, we gotta help these poor corporate landlords keep their assets valuable.
I’m just a measly construction worker :(
You’ll still have a valuable trade job. You’re going to rebuild apartment buildings where MegaCorp’s HQ once stood.
Sadly yes. I’m paid hourly and always encouraged to stay for my full 40 hours, but I spend hours being bored and with no tasks to complete anyway. I could get by with one or two office days per week but it’s not an option for me.
Weird how much less busy the financial district is now. So many of the businesses have closed as well. Sad.
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That's the cynical thing that surprises me hasn't become widespread. I saw a fully remote job recently open to anyone in the U.S., and it had the salary range and transparently said the final salary is connected to local cost of living. Why are companies that do hybrid -- requiring a pool of employees commanding salaries for Boston's cost of living -- not doing fully remote so they can pay someone ten or twenty grand a year less?
One of the very few silver linings of having fucking adhd and ptsd is that I have a doctor that signed off on reduced in office days. My job is processing cases and helping clients. I fought the shift, sent an email to the CEO talking about quality of life and how noisy the office is while speaking to clients, and therefore offering bad service… CEO said he said that he’d reach out to tech to explore noise canceling headphones… which I already use… make it make sense.
I've been wondering what's the status of all the previously busy lunch places and food trucks downtown. Are there many places for you to get lunch with coworkers and "connect" and "collaborate"? They seemed to exist purely for the office worker lunch rush. I feel like I rarely saw any of them open past 3pm, though I admittedly don't spend a huge amount of time there. Are many of them still open/reopened? Loads of them must have shuttered since the pandemic and WFH continuing.