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The working from home thread

We are now meant to book in to attend the office. I’m waiting for my manager to ask me to do this. She’s not based at my office so I wouldn’t be going in to see her anyway.

My contract ends at the end of year and apparently will be a hard stop, so my next time in the office may be to return my laptop. That said it is bloody freezing at home and I’m a bit tight about the heating given how inefficient it is. We’ll see.

I do need to get a perm job sorted pronto if they won’t extend me again. Shame I’ve not been able to land the permanent job.
 
Our work actively doesn't want us to work from home, in our department - a couple of people have asked about going in to the office to work, and it sounds like it'd be difficult to book a space. It'd be impossible for me anyway (and for a lot of our team - we live much too far away to commute in and were hired with them knowing where we live), but it's kind of shame, because it's a really lovely office campus with a free gym, cinema, subsidised canteen, etc.
 
Found out the other day that the Chief Exec's locker is near where a group of us sit , haven't seem her hovering around her locker once in the past couple of months 🤣 .

Staff have lockers for their laptops & that. I don't have one on this office as I'm not based here in normal times.
 
I'm back in the office for the first time tomorrow. I started the job in April last year so have never worked from the office aside from a few hours for meetings. Everyone on my team has a new laptop that plugs into a hub thing but I need to take everything, leads, mouse, the lot with me. Wish I'd told my manager I'm not coming in until I've got a new laptop.

At 9pm rather than chill out with my book and have an early night I've become obsessed with finding some bike lights and a cycling top I've lost. I don't need them but it's doing my head in that they're missing.
 
Just a regular island of lazy pigs. Next up: Children should be in full employment.

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Who compiles that crap and who do they think would swallow it?

Oh NVM I googled...some bunch of self proclaimed trusted expert Septics ...figures
 
There was an article in the Sun by that guy who ran Pimlico Plumbers. Basically saying that everybody who works at home is a twat and he won't employ them in his new business. Which is a shame as I really want to work for somebody who calls me a twat.

How long till "people working from home are part of the Czech intelligence service"?
 
How does a Plumber work from home?
They dont. Presumably his new business isnt plumbers. Or maybe it is and it was just a rant about "that lot"? Probably the second one i guess.

Maybe he was annoyed that he couldnt shout at his bookkeeper all day cos they were at home? I dunno. He was pretty angry about it all.
 
Heading into the office today, partly for my brains sake and party so the wife gets some space as she’s had booster yesterday and feeling like shit.

Mask wearing at maybe a third on the central line so little uncomfortable tbh. Having second thoughts about doing this once a week
 
I was in the office briefly today, completely alone, and it was quite liberating to be able to play whatever music I wanted as I worked in that environment. I'm cautiously curious to think of what my colleagues would've made of my choice of Autechre.
 
We got called into an unscheduled Teams meeting a couple of weeks ago, whereupon we were informed that the High Wycombe office was going to permanently close in December, and that our contracts are to be amended so we are now "home based". We're still going to have face-to-face meetings in Manchester and Kings Cross offices for department-wide stuff and training, and the company will also provide space in the budget for hiring meeting rooms if necessary.

I prefer to work from home, so this development pleases me. Iain Dickhead-Smith can go fuck himself with a cactus.
 
I'm expecting this to return shortly. We seem to be taking it in turns to be sent home due to positive cases and this room looks like a covid testing lab with all the testing kits knocking about. There is no fucking way I will work on this bastard couch for 6 months again, it still has my arse shaped sink hole in it. The broadband is getting cut off. It fucked with my mind in ways I didn't think were possible. I did enjoy watching Homes under the Hammer in the mornings though.
 
We got called into an unscheduled Teams meeting a couple of weeks ago, whereupon we were informed that the High Wycombe office was going to permanently close in December, and that our contracts are to be amended so we are now "home based". We're still going to have face-to-face meetings in Manchester and Kings Cross offices for department-wide stuff and training, and the company will also provide space in the budget for hiring meeting rooms if necessary.

I prefer to work from home, so this development pleases me. Iain Dickhead-Smith can go fuck himself with a cactus.
While you may prefer I definitely flag it to your union that is a serious change in contract and there follow on effects - health and safety in workplace, payment for facilities etc
 
While you may prefer I definitely flag it to your union that is a serious change in contract and there follow on effects - health and safety in workplace, payment for facilities etc

We already had our home working environments assessed by the health and safety department, not long after we started working from home. I started off using an ancient kitchen table as a desk, but that was soon replaced with a proper desk that's actually designed to be used as a workspace. I got to specify its colour and size to my preference. They also offered to have one of the desk chairs from the office transported to my place, but they're all those super-uncomfortable mesh-back chairs that are apparently shaped completely differently to the way my spine naturally sits. I did make some enquiries about the possibility of being supplied with a different chair way back then, but it seemed to me that it was very unlikely that they would be able to supply me with a chair that would meet my specifications. So I'm sticking with the real leather executive chair that I bought to replace the shitty old artificial leather chair I had. Actually it was only 2 years old when the polyurethane upholstery material started cracking, artificial leather is just that fucking shit.

The only real issue I feel I could reasonably point to is perhaps the one of heating, but I've got my own plans for that. With my current setup I could have a small electric heater running for brief periods of time under my desk, and the resulting warm air should be kept hanging around somewhat by the underside of the desk and the surrounding furniture. Combined with the thermal emissions generated by the electronic equipment in the room, I should be able to keep my working environment at a comfortable temperature. I suppose I could make enquiries about work supplying me with a heater, but I can't say I'm optimistic about the prospect. As far as I understand the legal situation, I'm solely liable for paying my electrical bills, and if I remember correctly, I can claim a rebate from HMRC as a remote worker, but that's about the extent of it so far as I can tell.

Nothing else is being changed about our contract, they were very clear (in writing) about that. I get my transport and accommodation completely paid for when being asked to travel to places other than where I'm based, which I believe is standard (legal?) practice anyway.
 
fully expecting my public sector employer to cancel the “come into the office 1 day a week” mandate - which I’ve been ignoring as waiting for line manager to formally ask me about it - in the next few weeks.

My walking is quite restricted so plan to contend that I can’t walk to the office from car park easily anyway. I also worked in the office for my first two months as no one ordered me a laptop so I’ve done a year of 1 day / week in the office already!
 
Yes I am interested in a cat.

View attachment 294242

The title reads like satire. I had a look at the article, but it's not. Fucking journalists.

"After a couple of weeks, I became lethargic, lazy, unmotivated and yet, perversely, convinced that I was much, much happier WFH."

This reads like someone is desperately scrabbling for excuses why they shouldn't be happier working from home. Either that, or she's one of those freaks who actually enjoys having someone with the whip hand over her. If that's your kink then fine, but don't try to impose it on the rest of us. Since they still have their job, I think we can safely assume that whatever guilt they may feel about being able to relax more was not bad enough to actually impact their productivity to a meaningful degree. Kill the boss in your head and celebrate not having your real boss breathe down your neck.

"Are they not aware that when youths leave school now they’re never going to go and work in their life, because the culture is, ‘Well my mum or dad work from home that’s what I’ll do’?" - Pimlico Plumber cunt

They'll never go and work, because they'll be working from instead? What?! Does that braindead fucking cunt not realise that people who work from home are actually, you know, working? Never mind that children rarely end up doing the same work their parents did, which just goes to show how out of touch the pipe-fiddler is.

"I don’t have children, but after four long weeks in my company even Dora, the dachshund, was beginning to stare at me with thinly veiled contempt."

Do journos really think shit like this convinces anyone?

She then rambles about her parents having a "wOrK eThIc", as if your dedication and effort in work had any damn thing to do with your physical location. Yes, if you're in a business like plumbing, then you will need to go out and about simply because that's where the work is. But if you're doing stuff such as clerical work, admin, information processing and database entry, then the location of your workspace is no longer critical.

"Nowadays, many graduates believe it is their God-given right to swan into the office on their own terms. They would last about a minute in showbiz. Entitled Gen Z’ers are angrily gunning for employers who won’t let them have their “work-life balance”.

For kids growing up now, what sort of example is this?"


It's a great example. People should work to live, and not live to work. Setting firm boundaries with your employers is one way of preventing work from taking over your life.

"Get stressed, take a month off."

Yes. What's wrong with that? Does this fucking hack think that people should force themselves to work while under stress? How the fuck does that help anyone? It's obviously shit for the employee, but it's also shit for the employer, because their workers will be more concerned about not falling apart psychologically, rather than producing their best.

"But there is a creeping generation of entitled workers thinking it is their right to lay down terms of their employment."

Good. Even with recent developments in the labour market, the balance of power is still firmly on the side of the employers.

"If we keep going soft on workers, eventually we will become soft as a society — capitulating at the first whiff of difficulty."

The very opposite is the case. People are no longer capitulating so much to the demands of shitty employers, and because this hack is a total bootlicker, this new-found confidence among workers frightens her, hence her call for more stick. Also fuck you. I don't need my life controlled by my employer to get things done.
 
I'm pretty much back full time in the office , but I'm still very much in the minority. There were maybe 30 people on my floor today (it can seat 200+)
 
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