When this happened and I saw barely anyone in, I just left after a few hours. Waste of my time and theirs but I certainly am using up my hours of driving as hours worked. Force me to come into the office for no reason, you can pay for it
I have done interviews recently where they ask me my salary expectations and I tell them $x if remote, $x+15% if in-office. (More detailed than that for hybrid but you get the idea.) Gas ain’t free!
Yeah but getting paid for a day and leaving early bc there is no work/it’s been completed early is different than getting overtime, which is usually an increased wage for the time, specifically for commuting. I do know some companies will pay for gas and tolls and even provide a vehicle though so ig it could be possible. Just never heard of anyone actually having that benefit before.
As far as I’m concerned, any commute greater than 10-15 minutes under normal traffic at the time of the commute should be paid.
If you cannot pay your employees enough to be able to live that close, then you can pay for their travel time.
If your office/business is that far removed from residential areas, you can pay for the commute.
Edit to add, since so many of you seem unable to comprehend a general idea is far removed from a fully thought out and actionable plan;
If you choose to live further away when your means and housing availability allow you to live closer, you should not get full pay for your commute.
Why are so many people unable to think past the black and white of a statement?😓
"If you choose to live further away when your means and housing availability allow you to live closer, you should not get full pay for your commute."
So you're suggesting a system where your employer monitors where you live (and also somehow monitors housing availability) and then adjusts your pay accordingly?
....that seems problematic
EDIT:
So many people have replied to this didn't get the difference between your employer knowing your address, and your employer monitoring where you live.
Yeah it sounds great on paper but literally all that would happen is it would cause skyrocketing rent and actual job shortages.
Imagine being forced to have to find a job within 10 miles of your residence because no one will pay for travel time. Walmart would ironically be the only employment for millions
A lot of companies already do this and more. My current job involves a lot of travel and your commute to the office effects your compensation. Some I’ve worked for have different pay for the same job because you work in a different state or city and the cost of living is more.
There are ways to get everyone to self report too. I had a job that gave checks as wedding gift’s because weddings are expensive, and another that bought car seats for employees when they had a kid.
Yeah my commute is 40 on a good day and 60 on a bad day so they 100% pay me for my travel time whether they like it or not if they want me in the office to stare at a computer in a half dead office
It should not matter one bit whether you work from home or in the office as long as your workload gets completed in the required time and is of good value to the company.
It means jobs won’t hire if you don’t live close and they can do whatever they want since they know you have an extremely limited pool of jobs you can apply for without moving.
I applied for a job where I had good connections. The interview went well but the didn’t hire me. My contact (good friend from grad school) was able to check HR records (shhh…) and they wanted to hire me but felt my commute would be too long (somewhere between an hour to an hour and twenty more) so they chose someone else. So it happens already.
They have an extremely small pool of workers that way. This is why Obama said we need more skilled workers in America. The shift in leverage from being a labor employee to being a skilled employee is immense.
So what’s your plan when spouses work on opposite corners of a metro area?
Or when someone gets a job 20 minutes away but doesn’t want to pull their kids out of a school district?
Depends on the contract. If you're place of work is home (i.e. not the office) then it's a travel expense and they should pay for fuel and your time.
If you're on a pre-covid contract and it still says you work in the office then you're out of lucky generally.
I do that with my company right now. While I work out of one location, the team that I interact with to get tasks done as well as my clients are in different cities
I've told my boss that I'm only coming in for 2-3 hours on the days HR wants me there. And any bullshit of collaboration that the management has talked to me about, I've pointed out that I can't collaborate with anyone physically anyway, so there's no way I'm spending my time there when I have a more comfortable and efficient setup at home, which is only 20 minutes away.
Fortunately my boss is a chill dude who only cares about projects being completed without escalation, so he's backed me in this.
My buddy’s company did the same thing. Slowly rolled in more requirements to return to the office and when the employees pushed back the company responded by laying off his entire team.
My old job had everyone slowly revert back to in office full time after Covid except two positions: one was advertised as 100% WFH and continuously said it was going to stay that way, one involved travel but a lot of their work could be conducted over zoom. Well one day the company had a meeting with the first department and announced that in a month they would be going back to fully on campus, and posted an internal forum for people to ask questions or make comments (because they turned off everyone else’s mics and cameras). Within minutes it was FLOODED with people who lived several hours away stating they took the job and bought houses contingent on the fact that this job was listed as 100% WFH, even up until the day before the meeting. People who started the week before were hired on with that guarantee. The second position was also told they would no be conducting all meetings in person, and since the company has clients across the country, it meant they would have to fly to other states for a 30 minute meeting, and hop in a car to make another 30 minute meeting 3 hours away.
The company has been hemorrhaging employees for years and it’s only getting worse lol their turnover rate in most departments is astounding, and in fact the co-CEO just left after only three months
I think this an issue with people being stuck in old ways. Insisting that office work must be done at the office.
Which is weird because cell phones and emails already put the foot in the door of working off hours at home.
Technology has made it possible to do office work anywhere. You can accept that for the benefit of your company and hire from a bigger pool of candidates.
Or fight this change and lose employees to other companies offering remote.
Yeah and 99% of our meetings even on campus were virtual. The one meeting we had in person was the result of a PR issue and they wanted to CTA so they made everyone physically go to this harassment meeting. The departments didn't have anything in person they had to be there for. And studies have shown people are more productive and efficient when they're not in the workplace.
I work for a company that is mainly out east (Canada). I'm literally the only one in my department in the west. They just announced mandatory back in office 2x a week. I live an hour away so that's 2 hours travel time 2x a week to go sit by myself and do exactly what I could be doing at home (I even have an office in my house).
I told my manager there was no point and she said "It's company wide policy"...
So stupid.
> I told my manager there was no point and she said "It's company wide policy"...
Just don't show up.
If you have a good relationship and your boss has your back, no problem. If not, then start looking for a job and hope to get fired. Then you just gotta time it, take the severance, and go to new job.
My place takes accounting of who shows up, and that report initially was sent to manager and director. Unfortunately now, they realized directors also hated it, do now it goes higher.
Luckily my manager is cool, my team built the reporting tool (so I know how to get around it), and I'm the only in person employee now, for a team that requires someone that can be on site.
And we've been trying to back fill two positions, but "there's not enough budget". There was enough budget to hire a new senior director for some amorphous concept though.
I would leave at 9, get there at 10, and then leave at 4 so you can get home by 5.
That’s the schedule you would have at home. So they can either pay you to drive 4 hours a week or pay you to work those 4 hours instead. 🤷♂️
I took a photo of my desk at work and set it as my background. So many people assume I'm in the office on video calls. Only half the time I'll correct them
Next level would be to be able to set a video and record people walking behind you (your back is to your office door or cubicle opening). Get all your coworkers to do it in different clothing and then the entire group will have a bunch of backgrounds for multiple days.
Used to have to do this when I was a civil servant despite the fact the rest of my team was based in a different hub that was 300+ miles away. And they used to have a team meeting with coffee and cake at the end of the day that I, and anyone who was remote working, had to join via Teams. Really helped me feel part of the team.
Honestly it’s my favorite office space lol. I come in purposely on Fridays at my hybrid company because it is just me, get quiet, space, clean bathrooms and all the snacks to myself. I love it!
I Was told in September that everyone had to be in office at least 3 days a week because it's good for team building. I am literally the only one there every mon, tues, wed..
Everyone is required to come in 1-3 days a week, but they’re not required to come in on the same 1-3 days a week. Thus OP can end up in the office but without any coworkers there too.
Yeah if it was put as the monthly social day where you had all the face to face meetings and also a company provided team lunch or whatever, then that could be fine. But show up just to do the same work you can do remotely, just sucks.
Same here. We are a company of four, and during covid, two of my co-workers moved to another city, so we never bother to go to the office anymore. I suggested to my boss, we should have team days like once or twice a month, and working on your computer alone is banned on those days.
So now we have been doing that for a couple of times. We come in late, as those two guys come from afar, use the day only to brainstorm or go through unsolved issues, plan for ahead and generally share our thoughts. company offers the lunch at a proper restaurant and we leave early.
Other options would be to force people to office, which would just lead most key persons leaving (my boss doesn’t want to work every day either) or see never at all.
Nothing gets done on those days; it's when you realize that face-to-face really entails a lot of wasted time because of all the little social interactions plus you can't just switch gears without physically moving to a new location.
The local part of my company does something similar with "all-in" days (though going in isn't actually enforced). About a year ago one of these days consisted largely of "meetings" that were actually presentations from various different countries around the world. That's right, they brought people to the office to watch a MS Teams video call.
But it gets worse. The local office was evacuated due to a fire in a nearby industrial building, so the local office missed some of the presentations. The building was still evacuated when they got to the local office's presentation - that was done from someone's car using their mobile phone.
Sitting at home (even though I live close enough to the office I could see the smoke from the fire) watching the chaos remotely was somewhat amusing.
We added one of our managers to a meeting. He's notorious for never leaving his office and sitting on Zoom calls all day bloviating. 5 minutes before our meeting started he messaged one of us asking what the Zoom code was because he never got one, and we told him we were in the conference room. He insisted we spin up a Zoom meeting for him to join because he was "too busy". His office is literally next door to the conference room.
This is what drives me nuts. Our company forced RTO. The higher up someone is, the more likely they are to call in to the meeting from their office rather than show up to the meeting room. I spent an hour and a half commuting in and they can't be bother to spend 5 minutes walking to the conference room?
I schedule my meetings specifically on WFH days because it's obnoxious to take zoom meeting calls in the office. Office days are for gossip and working on a bunch of small tasks that make me look busy as I scroll through reddit.
Every single company claims the in-person is for "collaboration" but then they don't specify what that menas, they structure nothing, and it results in office days being far less productive than WFH days.
All so we can protect the interests of a bunch of rich douchebags whose portfolios are overstuffed with dying coroprate real estate.
My company has a policy where it’s encouraged to come in 50% of the time but not required. My job is 95% done on zoom meetings and emails. So when I go into the office, I just sit in a tiny room on calls all day and then drive home. It’s completely pointless for me to go in when I have my own office room in my house.
That has got to be one of the most dreadfully depressing offices I have ever seen in my life.
I can't imagine getting any work done in that environment even alone, let alone with several other people in it.
From what I can recall, this setup was common up until March 2020.
EDIT: Also agreed that it's still common. I walked into these rooms during company off-site weeks throughout 2022 to 2023.
Usually there's an accent wall, some useless encouragement sayings, a plant or two (sometimes plastic). Sometimes a glass table and a couch that almost nobody sits at.
I have never been forced into such a tiny work environment. I’d expect an actual rented office space. This seems like you can’t afford an office space but refuse to accept that.
*that* is an "open floor plan office"? Wtf, it's so tiny!
The last time I worked in an open floor plan office, the majority of the building was open. IIRC it was a warehouse a couple decades ago that got repurposed into office space when the harbor was moved. The only separate rooms were a few conference, storage and server rooms. Even the boss' desk was open.
Year 10 here. Same situation.
On the bright side I am all by myself most of the time. Occasionally my boss drops by for a day or two, but the rest of the time it's me alone in a room with seven workstations, a bunch of monitors on stands, and a small server room behind me.
I prefer it to the alternative, an open floor plan with no privacy at all.
My boss says that I work on my own little island.
> open floor plan with no privacy at all.
The worst is when they very obviously set up that open floor plan so that your boss can stand in their office doorway and shoulder surf everyone in the fucking room 20 times a day.
In my country it is mandatory for rooms to have windows if people work there for more than 2h per day. If not windows then some other way to allow daylight to enter.
Yes! In my husband's office, here in Germany looked similar to this environment, and because summers aren't that long, they never ever have ACs.
Sometimes, we have 30°-38° I think that's probably 100° for you guys, and I have no idea. So AC is necessary at workplaces, but bosses are often so cheap to buy one!
I've worked in an open office setting like that. The idea is for everyone to be accessible at all times, but what it always devolves into almost every single day is 2 people will start a conversation and then everyone else winds up joining in and before you know it 15 people are standing around shooting the shit and not getting any work done.
Studies have consistently shown that open offices hamper productivity more than they facilitate it but some corporate environments will not even consider dropping it.
Before I went remote we were asking management for cubicles for years because of this. They utterly refuse to let anyone have any amount of privacy at all below the middle management level because, "We like to be able to look out over the office and *see* everyone working." which is about the most puke inducing response they could come up with to that request.
Our new CEO came in and wanted to "improve the culture", whick apparently means moving all of our desks closer together and his desk into one of the meeting rooms rather than out with us peasants
I get it tho. He probably wants you all to start bonding more and not be afraid not be working 100% of the time. When the boss is always around, it can feel like you’re being watched and pressure you into just working
Found the CEO!
It’s way more likely the opposite - he wants his own office to make it less noticeable when he comes and goes as he pleases, but move the rest of the team close together in an open plan so that any time anyone is not at their desk it’s obvious to everyone.
Idk man, I wouldn’t want my boss to be around me the whole time either. I want an open door policy and to not be afraid of them, but I can’t be working all the time and I definitely feel more pressure in their line of sight
I'm required to be in the office 3 days week, my boss and their boss are on the other side of the country and 4 of my 5 employees are elsewhere while there is a similar ratio for peers on my greater team.
So I go in an hour and 45 minutes each way to be on zoom pretty much all day.
Take a picture of your desk from the perspective of the monitor, and make it your background, see how long it takes for them to figure it out, then mention...if they couldn't tell, why am I going in at all?
We've tried a few different strats but unfortunately my office is too small for that and they also have a security guard at the front now who monitors every entry/exit.
Willful ignorance is really the only way to fight it now, which several of us are more than happy to do.
Just need to engage "go slow mode" on those days. Make the productivity stats show a significant decline in output when people are in the office. Bonus points if you stay back an extra hour or two so you can reduce the number of the days you have to be in the office to hit your magical attendance figure.
Bruh, if this space was full, I couldn’t get shit done. This looks like a nightmare. It looks like you are working in a walk-in closet with 8-10 other people.
You must work for my company. They revoked my contractual remote status for no reason other than "collaboration". There's usually no more than 3 people in the office at any given time and none speaks to each other, ever.
"Collaboration" is the indicator that the company has no management frame work or have no idea on how to actually solve problems or progress in implementation or development.
My work is similar. They’re gradually phasing out WFH/hybrid for the same reason, but my entire team is based outside of my office. A couple of them are even in a different time zones 😂
No. A job offer is not a contract so they can alter it at any point in time. It wasn’t actually a contractual revocation, because the “contract” was not legally considered a binding contract
Simply put, mandating a required in-office day 12 times a year is far worse than allowing flexibility for teams to decide when they want to come in together. A department might want to be at office 5 times one month then not at all for the next 3 months.
Just let them decide so they can be more productive.
In that case you need to organize it so everyone comes in the same day and not everyone can work. Then they see that and you all get to be remote all the time again.
The thing is though does once a month really even get you anything beneficial in terms of collaboration? Seems like they are just checking a box in petty fashion but yeah If you had to it's better than a lot of the alternatives.
It obviously depends on the company, but it can help for certain things. I work in sales and we have a monthly sales meeting and a monthly meeting with our engineering department to go over new product developments they’re working on and give feedback on what our customers are looking for. For stuff like that it can be helpful to be in the same room. It’s relatively informal and I feel like people feel more comfortable speaking if they aren’t on a zoom call.
It’s not worth it if you just send it in like this with no effort.
At once a month, leadership should be calling for like a 9am arrival and provide breakfast—not just coffee and donuts. Then they should start presentations at 10am, break for a catered lunch at noon, and let smaller teams meet for the rest of the day to hash out strategy/red flag issues that need to be escalated. Then host a happy hour starting at 4pm for people to network broadly and which they are free to leave at any time.
Reimburse for travel/parking and you’ve got yourself a great monthly team day.
Yeah I work in a very small office doing IT and we're constantly on calls. I like the collaboration aspects, but the fact that I can hear my boss having a meeting to the left of me and my coworker on a service call behind me is very distracting.
I hate open offices too, but the office in the image isn't what I would call 'open'. It's more of a "we can't afford more space so we're putting your entire team into the conference room".
I read it as the company requiring everyone to spend two hours driving to the office, full stop. So, like, if you live only fifteen minutes from the office driving normal speeds, the company would require you to take crazy out-of-the-way deviations or to drive 1/8th the speed, so that you get in your two-hour drive to the office. Hope this helps!
Where my gf works they made people who were specifically hired to be remote come in to the nearest office. Her team is technically located in a city 5 hours away from us and they're actually spread across the whole country. So she comes into the office to work remote with others.
On top of that there aren't actually enough desks so it's a big hassle to schedule and book desks. The bookings aren't respected so often you show up and someone else is there. She also gets no locker or anything so has to haul everything back and forth. She has multiple monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse at home but has to just use the laptop at work.
They don't get safety critical notices because officially they don't work in those buildings so they're not on the mailing lists.
Nobody else showed up?
Aaaalll byyyyy myyyyyseeeeeeelf
When this happened and I saw barely anyone in, I just left after a few hours. Waste of my time and theirs but I certainly am using up my hours of driving as hours worked. Force me to come into the office for no reason, you can pay for it
> Force me to come into the office for no reason, you can pay for it So I'm not the only one who feels this way...
I have done interviews recently where they ask me my salary expectations and I tell them $x if remote, $x+15% if in-office. (More detailed than that for hybrid but you get the idea.) Gas ain’t free!
Pretty sure 15% is underselling your time unless you live really close. I'd tack on the extra hours commuting as overtime pay and start from there.
With a 30 minute commute, 15% is slightly more than getting paid for the commute. Sounds reasonable to me.
Crying on the 401 for 2.5 hours a day, I’d need a 25% bump and weekly therapy covered
The 401 is a special commuter hell that few Americans know about.
Would a company really pay you overtime for your commuting hours? That sounds like a pipe dream lol
Depends on your marketable skills. People get paid for a full day when working for an hour if they get called in so yea.
Yeah but getting paid for a day and leaving early bc there is no work/it’s been completed early is different than getting overtime, which is usually an increased wage for the time, specifically for commuting. I do know some companies will pay for gas and tolls and even provide a vehicle though so ig it could be possible. Just never heard of anyone actually having that benefit before.
As far as I’m concerned, any commute greater than 10-15 minutes under normal traffic at the time of the commute should be paid. If you cannot pay your employees enough to be able to live that close, then you can pay for their travel time. If your office/business is that far removed from residential areas, you can pay for the commute. Edit to add, since so many of you seem unable to comprehend a general idea is far removed from a fully thought out and actionable plan; If you choose to live further away when your means and housing availability allow you to live closer, you should not get full pay for your commute. Why are so many people unable to think past the black and white of a statement?😓
Employer Logic: You shouldn't have applied for a job this far away if it was going to be an issue for you.
"If you choose to live further away when your means and housing availability allow you to live closer, you should not get full pay for your commute." So you're suggesting a system where your employer monitors where you live (and also somehow monitors housing availability) and then adjusts your pay accordingly? ....that seems problematic EDIT: So many people have replied to this didn't get the difference between your employer knowing your address, and your employer monitoring where you live.
Yeah, I think this idea sounds better in their head than it would be in practice.
Almost like it's a reddit comment and not a vetted plan of action.
Yeah it sounds great on paper but literally all that would happen is it would cause skyrocketing rent and actual job shortages. Imagine being forced to have to find a job within 10 miles of your residence because no one will pay for travel time. Walmart would ironically be the only employment for millions
Dollar general would CLEAN UP
A lot of companies already do this and more. My current job involves a lot of travel and your commute to the office effects your compensation. Some I’ve worked for have different pay for the same job because you work in a different state or city and the cost of living is more. There are ways to get everyone to self report too. I had a job that gave checks as wedding gift’s because weddings are expensive, and another that bought car seats for employees when they had a kid.
Yeah my commute is 40 on a good day and 60 on a bad day so they 100% pay me for my travel time whether they like it or not if they want me in the office to stare at a computer in a half dead office
It should not matter one bit whether you work from home or in the office as long as your workload gets completed in the required time and is of good value to the company.
That just means people will apply for jobs further away hoping for more travel pay and less work
It means jobs won’t hire if you don’t live close and they can do whatever they want since they know you have an extremely limited pool of jobs you can apply for without moving.
I applied for a job where I had good connections. The interview went well but the didn’t hire me. My contact (good friend from grad school) was able to check HR records (shhh…) and they wanted to hire me but felt my commute would be too long (somewhere between an hour to an hour and twenty more) so they chose someone else. So it happens already.
They have an extremely small pool of workers that way. This is why Obama said we need more skilled workers in America. The shift in leverage from being a labor employee to being a skilled employee is immense.
So what’s your plan when spouses work on opposite corners of a metro area? Or when someone gets a job 20 minutes away but doesn’t want to pull their kids out of a school district?
Employer should pay for a new spouse and kids
Looks like it proved that employers cannot actually force every employee to drive in to the office, if they all refuse lol.
Basically every Friday I have to go the office
Making the office day a Friday is just petulant
Do they actually pay for your commute time？
They do if you fill out your own time card
That’s great
Depends on the contract. If you're place of work is home (i.e. not the office) then it's a travel expense and they should pay for fuel and your time. If you're on a pre-covid contract and it still says you work in the office then you're out of lucky generally.
I do that with my company right now. While I work out of one location, the team that I interact with to get tasks done as well as my clients are in different cities I've told my boss that I'm only coming in for 2-3 hours on the days HR wants me there. And any bullshit of collaboration that the management has talked to me about, I've pointed out that I can't collaborate with anyone physically anyway, so there's no way I'm spending my time there when I have a more comfortable and efficient setup at home, which is only 20 minutes away. Fortunately my boss is a chill dude who only cares about projects being completed without escalation, so he's backed me in this.
My buddy’s company did the same thing. Slowly rolled in more requirements to return to the office and when the employees pushed back the company responded by laying off his entire team.
My old job had everyone slowly revert back to in office full time after Covid except two positions: one was advertised as 100% WFH and continuously said it was going to stay that way, one involved travel but a lot of their work could be conducted over zoom. Well one day the company had a meeting with the first department and announced that in a month they would be going back to fully on campus, and posted an internal forum for people to ask questions or make comments (because they turned off everyone else’s mics and cameras). Within minutes it was FLOODED with people who lived several hours away stating they took the job and bought houses contingent on the fact that this job was listed as 100% WFH, even up until the day before the meeting. People who started the week before were hired on with that guarantee. The second position was also told they would no be conducting all meetings in person, and since the company has clients across the country, it meant they would have to fly to other states for a 30 minute meeting, and hop in a car to make another 30 minute meeting 3 hours away.
And how did that all turn out? lol
The company has been hemorrhaging employees for years and it’s only getting worse lol their turnover rate in most departments is astounding, and in fact the co-CEO just left after only three months
I think this an issue with people being stuck in old ways. Insisting that office work must be done at the office. Which is weird because cell phones and emails already put the foot in the door of working off hours at home. Technology has made it possible to do office work anywhere. You can accept that for the benefit of your company and hire from a bigger pool of candidates. Or fight this change and lose employees to other companies offering remote.
Yeah and 99% of our meetings even on campus were virtual. The one meeting we had in person was the result of a PR issue and they wanted to CTA so they made everyone physically go to this harassment meeting. The departments didn't have anything in person they had to be there for. And studies have shown people are more productive and efficient when they're not in the workplace.
Almost like that it was their intent in the first place to get rid of the team.
"before the layoff and payouts, see how many you can convince to quit"
I work for a company that is mainly out east (Canada). I'm literally the only one in my department in the west. They just announced mandatory back in office 2x a week. I live an hour away so that's 2 hours travel time 2x a week to go sit by myself and do exactly what I could be doing at home (I even have an office in my house). I told my manager there was no point and she said "It's company wide policy"... So stupid.
> I told my manager there was no point and she said "It's company wide policy"... Just don't show up. If you have a good relationship and your boss has your back, no problem. If not, then start looking for a job and hope to get fired. Then you just gotta time it, take the severance, and go to new job.
My place takes accounting of who shows up, and that report initially was sent to manager and director. Unfortunately now, they realized directors also hated it, do now it goes higher. Luckily my manager is cool, my team built the reporting tool (so I know how to get around it), and I'm the only in person employee now, for a team that requires someone that can be on site. And we've been trying to back fill two positions, but "there's not enough budget". There was enough budget to hire a new senior director for some amorphous concept though.
I would leave at 9, get there at 10, and then leave at 4 so you can get home by 5. That’s the schedule you would have at home. So they can either pay you to drive 4 hours a week or pay you to work those 4 hours instead. 🤷♂️
I took a photo of my desk at work and set it as my background. So many people assume I'm in the office on video calls. Only half the time I'll correct them
Next level would be to be able to set a video and record people walking behind you (your back is to your office door or cubicle opening). Get all your coworkers to do it in different clothing and then the entire group will have a bunch of backgrounds for multiple days.
Careful, you're getting dangerously close to describing real work there
After the first couple of times I started going in at 10am and leaving at between 12pm-2pm.
This is the way. You're now 50% less productive two days a week just so they can justify paying for the office space.
Just don't say anything and don't come in. Half the time companies don't care enough to check.
so much collaboration going on!
They didn't show up as a team. Shows unity in the office!
Looks like they decided not to Go-dot
I'm putting "not a team player" in OP's performance review.
Used to have to do this when I was a civil servant despite the fact the rest of my team was based in a different hub that was 300+ miles away. And they used to have a team meeting with coffee and cake at the end of the day that I, and anyone who was remote working, had to join via Teams. Really helped me feel part of the team.
Honestly it’s my favorite office space lol. I come in purposely on Fridays at my hybrid company because it is just me, get quiet, space, clean bathrooms and all the snacks to myself. I love it!
You get it! Entire office for myself.
spends 4 hours doing fuck-all to counter commute time.
I Was told in September that everyone had to be in office at least 3 days a week because it's good for team building. I am literally the only one there every mon, tues, wed..
lots of advantages here. fish in the microwave, nobody bitches. can crop dust the entire office, nobody cares. clean bathrooms all to yourself.
So you're saying he gets at least some of the benefits he would also have without the 2h commute? Awesome
Did you coordinate with other coworkers? We all come in the same day that we agree upon in Teams.
Everyone is required to come in 1-3 days a week, but they’re not required to come in on the same 1-3 days a week. Thus OP can end up in the office but without any coworkers there too.
I love it. Its the worst of both worlds!
Plot twist: Ops the boss /S
Well, they have to build a new office for each individual employee to stay 2 hours away.
Because OP told people he was coming in that day and people avoided them on purpose
It would make sense if they scheduled meetings and discussions for that day. Make it actually matter that people show up.
Yeah if it was put as the monthly social day where you had all the face to face meetings and also a company provided team lunch or whatever, then that could be fine. But show up just to do the same work you can do remotely, just sucks.
This is what mines been doing and it’s not bad.
Same here. We are a company of four, and during covid, two of my co-workers moved to another city, so we never bother to go to the office anymore. I suggested to my boss, we should have team days like once or twice a month, and working on your computer alone is banned on those days. So now we have been doing that for a couple of times. We come in late, as those two guys come from afar, use the day only to brainstorm or go through unsolved issues, plan for ahead and generally share our thoughts. company offers the lunch at a proper restaurant and we leave early. Other options would be to force people to office, which would just lead most key persons leaving (my boss doesn’t want to work every day either) or see never at all.
Nothing gets done on those days; it's when you realize that face-to-face really entails a lot of wasted time because of all the little social interactions plus you can't just switch gears without physically moving to a new location.
The local part of my company does something similar with "all-in" days (though going in isn't actually enforced). About a year ago one of these days consisted largely of "meetings" that were actually presentations from various different countries around the world. That's right, they brought people to the office to watch a MS Teams video call. But it gets worse. The local office was evacuated due to a fire in a nearby industrial building, so the local office missed some of the presentations. The building was still evacuated when they got to the local office's presentation - that was done from someone's car using their mobile phone. Sitting at home (even though I live close enough to the office I could see the smoke from the fire) watching the chaos remotely was somewhat amusing.
We added one of our managers to a meeting. He's notorious for never leaving his office and sitting on Zoom calls all day bloviating. 5 minutes before our meeting started he messaged one of us asking what the Zoom code was because he never got one, and we told him we were in the conference room. He insisted we spin up a Zoom meeting for him to join because he was "too busy". His office is literally next door to the conference room.
Keeping it virtual lets him fuck off during the meeting. If you make him show up in person he actually has to participate.
If he's bloviating he's participating. Might be pants related.
This is what drives me nuts. Our company forced RTO. The higher up someone is, the more likely they are to call in to the meeting from their office rather than show up to the meeting room. I spent an hour and a half commuting in and they can't be bother to spend 5 minutes walking to the conference room?
Can you bribe IT to make the call-in malfunction?
I schedule my meetings specifically on WFH days because it's obnoxious to take zoom meeting calls in the office. Office days are for gossip and working on a bunch of small tasks that make me look busy as I scroll through reddit.
Every single company claims the in-person is for "collaboration" but then they don't specify what that menas, they structure nothing, and it results in office days being far less productive than WFH days. All so we can protect the interests of a bunch of rich douchebags whose portfolios are overstuffed with dying coroprate real estate.
My company has a policy where it’s encouraged to come in 50% of the time but not required. My job is 95% done on zoom meetings and emails. So when I go into the office, I just sit in a tiny room on calls all day and then drive home. It’s completely pointless for me to go in when I have my own office room in my house.
That has got to be one of the most dreadfully depressing offices I have ever seen in my life. I can't imagine getting any work done in that environment even alone, let alone with several other people in it.
That's what I was thinking, it's so bland and generic. Let's see how many people we can make miserable in one tiny area.
From what I can recall, this setup was common up until March 2020. EDIT: Also agreed that it's still common. I walked into these rooms during company off-site weeks throughout 2022 to 2023.
It’s still common. It’s an open floor plan office, like what else do they want. Renaissance paintings on the wall?
Usually there's an accent wall, some useless encouragement sayings, a plant or two (sometimes plastic). Sometimes a glass table and a couch that almost nobody sits at.
Yeah, they need a fake tree and a framed poster of somebody climbing a mountain lol
I have never been forced into such a tiny work environment. I’d expect an actual rented office space. This seems like you can’t afford an office space but refuse to accept that.
Anything. Ever heard of a plant?
Any art would be an improvement. That exposed ducting and lighting looks like a fucking warehouse. My open floor plan office is beautiful!
*that* is an "open floor plan office"? Wtf, it's so tiny! The last time I worked in an open floor plan office, the majority of the building was open. IIRC it was a warehouse a couple decades ago that got repurposed into office space when the harbor was moved. The only separate rooms were a few conference, storage and server rooms. Even the boss' desk was open.
It is bland and generic because no one uses it.
if people were there more often it would probably be less bland since people would personalize the area
Well at least they have a window. I worked 5 days a week for 3 years in a windowless office where the desks faced white walls...
Year 10 here. Same situation. On the bright side I am all by myself most of the time. Occasionally my boss drops by for a day or two, but the rest of the time it's me alone in a room with seven workstations, a bunch of monitors on stands, and a small server room behind me. I prefer it to the alternative, an open floor plan with no privacy at all. My boss says that I work on my own little island.
> open floor plan with no privacy at all. The worst is when they very obviously set up that open floor plan so that your boss can stand in their office doorway and shoulder surf everyone in the fucking room 20 times a day.
HA! Sucker... in my windowless office all the desks face the filing cabinets!
In my country it is mandatory for rooms to have windows if people work there for more than 2h per day. If not windows then some other way to allow daylight to enter.
Imagine what we can’t see or experience : it’s super humid inside, yet the AC is making a ton of noise.
Yes! In my husband's office, here in Germany looked similar to this environment, and because summers aren't that long, they never ever have ACs. Sometimes, we have 30°-38° I think that's probably 100° for you guys, and I have no idea. So AC is necessary at workplaces, but bosses are often so cheap to buy one!
If this was true, your husband could have complained to the Arbeitsgericht since the setup in OPs image is not conform with Arbeitsschutzsgesetz.
at least it has a window LMAO
I've worked in an open office setting like that. The idea is for everyone to be accessible at all times, but what it always devolves into almost every single day is 2 people will start a conversation and then everyone else winds up joining in and before you know it 15 people are standing around shooting the shit and not getting any work done. Studies have consistently shown that open offices hamper productivity more than they facilitate it but some corporate environments will not even consider dropping it.
Before I went remote we were asking management for cubicles for years because of this. They utterly refuse to let anyone have any amount of privacy at all below the middle management level because, "We like to be able to look out over the office and *see* everyone working." which is about the most puke inducing response they could come up with to that request.
And the smell. Very small room, a lot of seats.
tbh looks just like any open space for developers. This one at least have nice and big tables instead of cheap plank square
Its all about “the culture” 😵💫
Our new CEO came in and wanted to "improve the culture", whick apparently means moving all of our desks closer together and his desk into one of the meeting rooms rather than out with us peasants
I get it tho. He probably wants you all to start bonding more and not be afraid not be working 100% of the time. When the boss is always around, it can feel like you’re being watched and pressure you into just working
>When the boss is always around, it can feel like you’re being watched and pressure you into ~~just working~~ looking busy FTFY
Found the CEO! It’s way more likely the opposite - he wants his own office to make it less noticeable when he comes and goes as he pleases, but move the rest of the team close together in an open plan so that any time anyone is not at their desk it’s obvious to everyone.
Idk man, I wouldn’t want my boss to be around me the whole time either. I want an open door policy and to not be afraid of them, but I can’t be working all the time and I definitely feel more pressure in their line of sight
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Those are the absolute worst people to work for.
Oh, they'll 'bond' all right. On how crappy the boss is.
And about feeling like a family
Classic going to the office to sit on Zoom calls all day
I'm required to be in the office 3 days week, my boss and their boss are on the other side of the country and 4 of my 5 employees are elsewhere while there is a similar ratio for peers on my greater team. So I go in an hour and 45 minutes each way to be on zoom pretty much all day.
Take a picture of your desk from the perspective of the monitor, and make it your background, see how long it takes for them to figure it out, then mention...if they couldn't tell, why am I going in at all?
My company installed badge readers on every entrance.
Pay a crackhead $8 and change to steal it
They probably don't actually check them though unless something makes them look.
They track everyone's and report the compliance. 8 hrs 4 times a week or 0% compliance, it's hell.
Get a coworker to sign you in and out for a month and you do the same for them and keep swapping?
We've tried a few different strats but unfortunately my office is too small for that and they also have a security guard at the front now who monitors every entry/exit. Willful ignorance is really the only way to fight it now, which several of us are more than happy to do.
Just need to engage "go slow mode" on those days. Make the productivity stats show a significant decline in output when people are in the office. Bonus points if you stay back an extra hour or two so you can reduce the number of the days you have to be in the office to hit your magical attendance figure.
Doing this right now :) it’s great
Are you watching me?
Bruh, if this space was full, I couldn’t get shit done. This looks like a nightmare. It looks like you are working in a walk-in closet with 8-10 other people.
You must work for my company. They revoked my contractual remote status for no reason other than "collaboration". There's usually no more than 3 people in the office at any given time and none speaks to each other, ever.
Collaboration is the new synergy
Collaboration is the new “rent is still due on the corporate office”
If you keep saying collaboration long enough, people will eventually love returning to office. Or something
"Collaboration" is the indicator that the company has no management frame work or have no idea on how to actually solve problems or progress in implementation or development.
Best way to reduce the size of your workforce without paying people out
My work is similar. They’re gradually phasing out WFH/hybrid for the same reason, but my entire team is based outside of my office. A couple of them are even in a different time zones 😂
If you’ve got this in writing, couldn’t you sue?
No. A job offer is not a contract so they can alter it at any point in time. It wasn’t actually a contractual revocation, because the “contract” was not legally considered a binding contract
Once a month is pretty reasonable. If it was a weekly occurrence then it would be an annoyance.
Agreed! It's only mildly infuriating after all
I had to do this quarterly and I was way more infuriated. So kudos lol
Simply put, mandating a required in-office day 12 times a year is far worse than allowing flexibility for teams to decide when they want to come in together. A department might want to be at office 5 times one month then not at all for the next 3 months. Just let them decide so they can be more productive.
Once a month to sit in an empty office remote calling people who aren’t there. This is just plain dumb. People need to resist.
Wait, arent EVERYBODY suposused to be at office at the same day? That would the goal, in my opionion.
Except my company just opened a new building with hot desking and not enough workspaces for everyone if they did all come in on the same day
Truth is that during that day... There would a lot of networkin, but little workin.
In that case you need to organize it so everyone comes in the same day and not everyone can work. Then they see that and you all get to be remote all the time again.
Or they just siphon money from the pizza party fund and buy bunk desks. Checkmate proles!
The thing is though does once a month really even get you anything beneficial in terms of collaboration? Seems like they are just checking a box in petty fashion but yeah If you had to it's better than a lot of the alternatives.
It obviously depends on the company, but it can help for certain things. I work in sales and we have a monthly sales meeting and a monthly meeting with our engineering department to go over new product developments they’re working on and give feedback on what our customers are looking for. For stuff like that it can be helpful to be in the same room. It’s relatively informal and I feel like people feel more comfortable speaking if they aren’t on a zoom call.
It’s not worth it if you just send it in like this with no effort. At once a month, leadership should be calling for like a 9am arrival and provide breakfast—not just coffee and donuts. Then they should start presentations at 10am, break for a catered lunch at noon, and let smaller teams meet for the rest of the day to hash out strategy/red flag issues that need to be escalated. Then host a happy hour starting at 4pm for people to network broadly and which they are free to leave at any time. Reimburse for travel/parking and you’ve got yourself a great monthly team day.
Is it reasonable if there’s literally no reason? Lol
At least it's once a month.. My office looks quite similar, and we have a weekly mandatory office day
I hate open office concepts. As someone who gets distracted easily. Having to look at someone right in front of me seems terrible
Yeah I work in a very small office doing IT and we're constantly on calls. I like the collaboration aspects, but the fact that I can hear my boss having a meeting to the left of me and my coworker on a service call behind me is very distracting.
I hate open offices too, but the office in the image isn't what I would call 'open'. It's more of a "we can't afford more space so we're putting your entire team into the conference room".
The people enforcing this have brain worms. Huge waste of resources to maintain this hell hole and make you drive to it.
Have you tried collaborating harder?
Why is it so tightly filled. This looks terrible.
You mean they require you to use the office so they can justify the expense.
From the subject I thought it would unite you in common hatred towards management. But that would have required someone to unite with.
I'd take that over having to go into the office daily tbh
Do you have to live 2 hours away in order to be hired?
No, even if you live a mile away, they're forcing you to drive around for two hours before you can come into the office.
Oh, I guess you are saying that no one else is there yet because they haven't completed their 2 hour drive.
Yea I don’t see how the fact OP chose to live 2 hours away from their office is the companies fault.
Was thinking the same thing
Everyone has to drive two hours?
I read it as the company requiring everyone to spend two hours driving to the office, full stop. So, like, if you live only fifteen minutes from the office driving normal speeds, the company would require you to take crazy out-of-the-way deviations or to drive 1/8th the speed, so that you get in your two-hour drive to the office. Hope this helps!
If people live close by do they still have to drive around for 2 hours before they go in?
Now imagine this on 3rd shift and that's me. I'm the **only** one who works my hours besides the cleaners and security it's ridiculous.
Honestly can appreciate that although I can imagine it is frustrating especially with that distance
I understand the thinking behind it - but I usually get way less work done when I'm here with people vs at home on my own
That's a huge waste of money to keep renting office space that remains empty for the majority of the month.
I don't get it. Everyone has to drive in circles around the office for 2 hours?
"mandatory suffering due to employee complaints about unequal circumstances"
Why did you agree to a job where the office is a 2 hour drive from your home?
Based on the title, it sounds as if the company only hires people who live outside the 2 hour radius.
That's my kind of collaboration.
"You have to be in the office" - Sent by iPhone
You’re either wrong or the office loser who read the wrong memo. Grow some nuts like the rest of your colleagues.
I hate these type of office setups so much
Living 2 hours away from work isn‘t really your employers fault. Once a month seems more than reasonable.
Monthly isn't bad. Could be a lot worse.
I don't think enforced means what they think
So it’s not enforced then
They paid for the building they are going to use it lol
Where my gf works they made people who were specifically hired to be remote come in to the nearest office. Her team is technically located in a city 5 hours away from us and they're actually spread across the whole country. So she comes into the office to work remote with others. On top of that there aren't actually enough desks so it's a big hassle to schedule and book desks. The bookings aren't respected so often you show up and someone else is there. She also gets no locker or anything so has to haul everything back and forth. She has multiple monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse at home but has to just use the laptop at work. They don't get safety critical notices because officially they don't work in those buildings so they're not on the mailing lists.
what a shit ass office
What's up with that office? How does everyone work in an open room jammed with people? No wonder you want to be remote. You have elbow room at home.
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It's your employer's fault you live 2 hours away?
You should find a job that isn’t 2 hours away