How many times have you been into your office/workplace since March 2020?
- Thread starter Cloo
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existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Once a week since September. I'm one of two (out of a team of 7) who's providing a much-needed (wanted?) face-to-face service. I can see it suddenly coming to an end, though, just as it did in the first lockdown.
5t3IIa
Registered User
I was an essential worker (civil service) during the lockdowns and was in once a week during deep lockdown and then ramped up into a BAU model. Then I got a new job and have been in for the requested twice a week since October.
I’m still civil service (though no longer essential that I am present in the office) so expecting a communique at some point today. I’m currently in bed with my laptop and can expect to stay here until…Spring?
I’m still civil service (though no longer essential that I am present in the office) so expecting a communique at some point today. I’m currently in bed with my laptop and can expect to stay here until…Spring?
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Pret's profits, boo-hoo.
Voley
Joyful and Recumbent
I was going to say half a dozen times but I could probably count my trips to the office on one hand.
I'm very lucky that I've got a job that lends itself to being in a quiet room at home - it's genuinely easier to do at home than in an office.
Been an absolute Godsend for me. Work/life balance has improved immeasurably. Saved thousands in petrol.
It's normal for me now. I'd have to be desperate to take a job that didn't at least offer flexible/hybrid working now.
I'm very lucky that I've got a job that lends itself to being in a quiet room at home - it's genuinely easier to do at home than in an office.
Been an absolute Godsend for me. Work/life balance has improved immeasurably. Saved thousands in petrol.
It's normal for me now. I'd have to be desperate to take a job that didn't at least offer flexible/hybrid working now.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
I'm sick of it to be honest. Apart from being in the office I miss just getting up and getting out into the world.
To answer the actual question though I think it's about 8-10. My circumstances are a bit odd though in that I moved house so I'm about 200 miles away from the office. For a while I was WFH anyway then they made us come in for a bit (it was meant to be twice a week although I dodged it a bit) which wasn't really feasible for me on a longer term basis. I've now got a new job lined up and told them I wasn't going back in while I was working my notice, which they accepted (although now it looks like no-one will be going in again). The idea was that I'd be in more regularly in that job though and I'm concerned that won't happen now.
Voley
Joyful and Recumbent
It's a good question.
I've lost a teeny weeny bit of workplace camaraderie I think but it's more than compensated for by avoiding the bullshit. Office gossip? None of that any more. Pussyfooting around narky colleagues? Loads less of that.
I think it must be tough to start a new job wfh though. I'd want to be in the office for that. And I wouldn't like to be a young person starting out in the working world with everyone wfh. That'd be weird, I think.
But from my point of view it's been the best development that's happened to work conditions in decades.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
I'm self-employed, when the first lockdown begun I was 8 months into a 1 year contract that ended up being extended to a 2 year one so I worked from home without going into the office from 13/03/2020 to 21/08/2021. I've still got their laptop in my hallway and I email them occasionally to come and pick it up but they haven't yet.
At that point I was going to retire but Evil American Megacorp asked me to come back for a final 6 months (now extended to 1 year), I refused so they put the day rate up, I still refused so they put it up again and Mrs Q insisted I take it. They are paying me 4 times what they paid me when they made me redundant in 2015 (and this is my fourth time back) so it has ended up costing them far more money to make me redundant and hire me back than if they had kept me in the first place.
I went into the office for 9 days from 31/08/2021 to 10/09/2021 though there was hardly anyone there. A couple of days there were like 2 or 3 of us in an office that housed 80 when I was employed there, it probably never got to double figures.
Since then I have worked from home again, I can't see myself ever going back to any office anywhere.
At that point I was going to retire but Evil American Megacorp asked me to come back for a final 6 months (now extended to 1 year), I refused so they put the day rate up, I still refused so they put it up again and Mrs Q insisted I take it. They are paying me 4 times what they paid me when they made me redundant in 2015 (and this is my fourth time back) so it has ended up costing them far more money to make me redundant and hire me back than if they had kept me in the first place.
I went into the office for 9 days from 31/08/2021 to 10/09/2021 though there was hardly anyone there. A couple of days there were like 2 or 3 of us in an office that housed 80 when I was employed there, it probably never got to double figures.
Since then I have worked from home again, I can't see myself ever going back to any office anywhere.
Yeah my lad wfh three days a week, and two in the office. He thinks that’s a good mix. I dunno really, seems very atomised to me. I think it’s one of those quiet seismic changes that’ll cause significant social consequences that won’t be properly understood until we have hindsight.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Yeah agreed. I suspect, in our current world at least, that something that heavily reduces actual social contact between people is going to have a lot of negative effects.
Even at a work level I think you'd have difficulty organising something like a union in an entirely WFH workforce.
ETA: To qualify that though, I also think there's a lot of negative stuff in our work culture so I don't want to make out as if everything was great previously.
Johnny Doe
Well-Known Member
I think WFH loses a lot more for younger people. Lots of the people I grew up with took jobs in and around the centre of London and they would go out straight from work, either with colleagues or meeting up with our other mates who worked there. I never really did it, working in construction and utilities, normally somewhere in the suburbs and being in an office at 7am most of the time.
I assume that other big cities are the same, that young people like to work in the busy centre and avail themselves of it's attractions after work. That must have died out now and will be a loss to the generation of 20 somethings now
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
My main office is a 11 story block , it can fit in 200 or so a floor. I've not seen more than 40 people per floor since lockdown. Thursday seems to be the busiest day , sometimes I see no more than 10 people on my floor.
Voley
Joyful and Recumbent
My managers office is two counties away now so although I have an office I can commute to nearby, none of my team are there even if I do go in. They're scattered over Cornwall, Devon and Somerset so it seems totally pointless going into an office now.
When I do go in, I see the lack of mask-wearing and think 'Fuck this.' I stopped for 2 whole hours last time before I was back in the car and back home.
When I do go in, I see the lack of mask-wearing and think 'Fuck this.' I stopped for 2 whole hours last time before I was back in the car and back home.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Been on site full time since August 2020. Obviously a lot of what I do needs me to be physically present, but I’ve been under pressure to still be in for all the office/admin parts of my job and I fucking hate it. Working from home would suit me perfectly.
What’s gonna happen to these places eventually? It’s going to change the structure of the city.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
It would be nice to think the wealthy corporate landlords who own them get utterly fucked over and go bankrupt, but I won’t hold my breath.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
From pov of work, depends I think on whether you work in a team or not. The informal ‘catching someone at the end of a meeting’ is harder. Creative collaboration is harder.
Training people online can be hard.
From social pov, as said ^ people don’t get to gossip/drink/snog. Harder to base social life round work. I suspect society will adjust - there’s no reason why that can’t go on locally to where you live and new social means will spring up to facilitate it.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Social life round work… shudders
Johnny Doe
Well-Known Member
I don't see that. If you were in your twenties living in the London surburbs, travelling into town each day and then heading to busy pubs full of your peers doing the same after work, changing the pyjama bottoms you've left on with a shirt for Teams meetings, to head to your local boozer isn't going to cut it.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Once in the old office to collect my stuff (it was empty), and once in the new office to collect a new security card and see what it was like. No plans to go back any time soon.
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
Mine is owned by a Local Authority tbf
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Maybe, but you might not have a choice.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Thing is social interaction isn't just 'interaction when socialising' is it? It's all those interactions you have with people in all sorts of ways, and if you're sat at your desk at home those are being lost. And I know a lot of people, especially on here, will say they prefer it like that, or they get more than enough social interaction anyway, etc etc which is fine but at a wider level I suspect that's a big loss for a lot of people.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
my Son-in-Law works for a smallish (<100) company that pre-Lurgy had snazzy offices in central Nottingham and a boss that didn't approve of WFH. They've now moved out of them to a much smaller and cheaper place on the outskirts of the city that can't accomodate more than half since the boss is now happy with people coming in only when needed. SiL thinks its great, he's saved the best part of a couple of hours travelling most days, saves a fortune and gets to spend a lot more time with his young kids. Eldest was telling me yesterday that they quite often walk Grandson 1 to school together before SiL gets cracking. Eldest reckons her husband will find another job before he agrees to go back to the office full time.
One small company isn't going to have an effect but hundreds will, I can see commercial renting struggling over the next few years especially since it looks like there may be regular flare ups of the plague with corresponding mandates to work from home.
Irony is that Eldest met him when she was temping there as the receptionist so going forward I imagine office romances are going to become a lot rarer.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
“Their eyes met across a crowded zoom…”
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