Fuck Going Back to the Office
fuckgoingbacktotheoffice.com
fuckgoingbacktotheoffice.com
So your solution only works if companies fire their employees on the spot when they void non-mwtching preference. But companies don't like to fire their employees either because there are ongoing projects and "bus number" is not high enough.
Hence the struggle.
Only when you reach the conclusion that you can reach compromise acceptable to both sides you say your goodbyes.
I'm sure there's a least one fuckremoting.com active or getting set up as we speak.
In fact legislators don't need to enforce anything yet, but they need to make remote work more feasible. Things like, don't require physical headquarters or physical paperwork and inspections, don't tie any kind of taxation/social security etc to physical locations, facilitate faster switching of jobs etc.
An employer has the "right" to ask you to work from their office in exchange for money. You have the right to accept or decline their offer.
Here's my argument - stop thinking of yourself as an employee. Instead, think of yourself as someone who buys the service. Think of a service that can be done either remotely or in person, but you STRONGLY prefer it to be in office/on-premises. For instance, psychotherapy can be done via Zoom, but you really want it to be in person. Or yoga class - you can do it in home via Zoom or Youtube, but you prefer the gym. Or classes. Or whatever, but think of something that you want to pay for and for you it has to be in person, even though it can be done remotely as well.
Now, think of a mechanism that guarantees that you can buy this service in person in a marketplace where every person has the right to work from home or not. Wouldn't companies have to create multiple vacancies and some vacancies would be 'work from work only' and some would be flexible? I see no other way. You can't be one sided and think only about employees or only about employers. You have to think about consumers too. After all, we are typically all three - we are hired from some jobs, we hire for others and we surely consume a lot in addition to producing something.
Well no, there were actually very few pre-covid. For example it s very hard for a disabled person to be a lecturer, despite tons of them being great researchers, and i have seen it this year with my disabled friend who had an explosion of opportunities to present her work in conferences, since every one of them became virtual.
On-premise work will become work at a premium. Want a real psychotherapist, fine but it will cost more. On the other hand, virtual will be cheaper. The rest is market re-balancing. I m not arguing that remote work should be mandatory everywhere, but in certain domains where it's easy and feasible, yes, legislation could push for more adoption.
Same with most other public work - let's take police. Yeah, if you are a beat cop, you've got to pound the streets. But you are a detective. Can't you say that you want to talk to witnesses and suspects from your home via Zoom? Sure witnesses might chose to visit the station, but you don't want to do interrogation in person, because you think that it can be done just as effectively from home. Or hospitals.
The more you think about it (at least in my case) the less idea of 'remote work right' makes sense. Option - yes, right - no. It simply makes things worse, not better.
If you don't understand it, try flipping the situation around. Try justifying 'the right to work from office' for a person like me (which is not totally true - I can work both from home or office, I just prefer office for social reasons). Let's say I get hired by Basecamp, which is remote only with no office. I then claim that 'work from office' is my right because whatever. It's just a type of spoiled entitled brat that am. Now Basecamp or any other fully remote company is forced to rent an office just for me and maybe a few others who also share inclination to work from the office. Meanwhile, there are a ton of 'office vacancies' out there that I could have easily applied to given my background. How is it fair to Basecamp?
The older I get the more I believe in Cliff Stoll’s vision of education - one without technology. Zoom is convenient but it sucks the life out of learning.
There are a lot of reasons why someone might not be able to move wherever they like. For example, they don't want to leave the area where they grew up, where all their friends and family live, and their kids go to school. Or where their partner can't move because they work somewhere like a hospital.
As for "slightly inconveniences"... maybe for some it's nothing more than that, but for many people it's been an absolute nightmare.
I admire your desire to make work more inclusive, but the irony is that working from home tends to benefit wealthy, educated individuals in highly-paid specialist jobs. We need a lot of other changes if we're to have mass remote working without a huge increase of economic inequality.
I'm talking about cleaners, administrators, callcentre workers, fast food staff, delivery drivers, supermarket shelf stackers, etc, living in a small flat in an unfashionable neighbourhood. They suffer very much from social exclusion, and handwavy arguments about how everything will just work itself out sounds naive and silly.
For a software dev (especially those with a few years of experience), work tends to be easy to come by. We pick up our laptop, tether to our mobile phone, whack out a few CVs and offers come flooding in. If you're unattached (single, no dependents) you can work from wherever you like - you write some code, push it to Git, and deploy to a server.
But most people's jobs and lives don't look like that. They are rooted by partners, children or elderly relatives. By jobs that require you to be there in physical form. By personalities that struggle with an immense amount of change. By pay structures and pensions that reward longevity.
To your last point, about how it remote working will have a negative effect on blue collar workers:
1. If remote-working is a human right, then it must be granted to ALL workers - regardless of the shade of their collar. I'm extremely sceptical that work requiring a physical presence will see a huge boost in wages. Thus, it risks merely be a perk offered to those already well compensated.
2. Since remote-working tends to benefit who already have large houses, fast internet, good technology, and good networks, it entrenches their position. If you currently earn minimum wage serving burgers in McDonalds, and can't afford a good laptop and internet connection, you will find it hard to even get on the ladder where remote-working is a norm. Thus it will most likely reduce social mobility.
But if I were 18 now, I'd probably be living and working in a small bedroom in a house I share with strangers. We'd argue that someone is bandwidth-hogging or playing loud music while I'm trying to do a code review with my boss. I'd want to be around people more experienced than me - learning the trade from someone is easier in person than through a video call. I'd want to experience city nightlife with my colleagues.
As such, there's a bit of tendency for those of us who have already "made it" to want to work from home, while the next generation tends to want to work from an office.
And even within those broad brush tendencies, there are lots of subtle differences. The idea that "I want to work from home, so surely everyone else does as well, and anyone that doesn't is an asshat" is stupid.
However I also worry a lot about two aspects of remote working:
1- Employers will want to increase surveillance at home at the expanse of even more privacy.
2- The significantly increased difficulty for workers to organize without meeting regularly in person.
2. I've worked from home for 1.5 years now that this has not been a problem at all. I'd say it's quite the opposite. Just schedule a meeting online. It's not any harder than scheduling a meeting in an office.
2- Scheduling meetings online can work for people who are already engaged are motivated enough. But that's really not efficient to organize other people, or to be available to help those who are suffering from their working conditions (especially if the problem is related to isolation).
2. I only mentioned online meetings because you mentioned meeting people. There's plenty of other ways to organize people online. Emails, chats, calls, issue trackers, etc.
There are some people who want to live in the office, there are some people that want to work entirely remotely.
There are some people who want to work in bali or some other poor country that can be relentlessly exploited by rich westerners.
There are some people who want to work 3 days a week in the office, others only 1.
What pisses me off is there are a large number shouty types who insist on saying that remote "nomad" is the only way to work, any tech company that disagrees is a nazi or some shit.
The truth is, partially remote is the future, but unless we fundamentally change as a species, and we outsource child rearing, fully remote/nomadic work life is a pipe dream
Reasons are that office people want to be around people, which would be missing half the time, leading to them leaving to a more office friendly company eventually.
At the other end, the remote workers will be treated to a business as usual environment where things happen more face to face and synchronously, leaving them out of touch with the work environment, which will inevitably lead to them leaving for a more remote friendly company.
Pick one and stick with it.
Since Covid, I'm working 100% from home and while it has some advantages (commute time/costs, better work gear), I'm missing the hybrid model.
The entire debate is futile though. Some employees / employers prefer WFH, some don't. Simple like that.
To my understanding, as long as the job is done, up to standards, and within budgets, everyone should be happy no matter WFH or not.
A lot of my colleagues are going this way. It allows them to have some deep focus time, but also have meeting times. Its clearly delineated too.
Its not for everyone, but for parents, it can be good.
Also, that 90s Geocities vibe.....
Collaboration with peers is much more organic and fruitful when in person. Not to say it isn't doable remotely but, his sounds more like a corporate culture issue.
Still, should I move to a home that would afford me a proper home office, I am likely to be doing more work remote. But not everyone necessarily have that luxury. Additionally, there may be some cultural differences to office culture that alludes me, as I have yet to meet people where I live (Copenhagen, DK) that dread going back to the office.
I’m a manager and remote work suites me well. I’ve been a proponent and participator of remote work for years.
I couldn’t care less where my teams work from as long as we meet our commitments (which has never been an issue). My job is not to tell them how or where to work. My job is to remove roadblocks, ensure they have what they need to do their job, and advocate on behalf of the team and each individual for their long term success.
I’m beginning to think that was a leading question.
Unfortunately, as people start returning the noise/interruption/lack of personal space level will inevitably rise and in the end I will probably start to miss working from home. Anyway I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
Also yes fuck going back to the office... full time. 1-2 days/week to refresh the old empathy bladder works best for me. Makes me remember my coworkers are actually human beings instead of talking heads/words on a screen.
Guessing that is supposed to say "the appearance of productivity"?
Where can I vote to have a good quality office? With free fruit and free lunch, flexible hours and work from home when I FEEL like it
Thanks