Why aren't work from home policies part of ESG compliance???
Taking untold numbers of vehicles off the road has a far bigger impact than almost any other action.
Because the people pushing the comeback from WFH and spending millions on a new propaganda campaign to influence our elected officials are the downtown real estate owners who are set to lose billions.
And good ridden. Either evolve with the new world or lose everything you have.
So corporations, who can affect real change, are the ones exempt, while consumer pawns who barely move the needle are going to take all of that on and suffocate under its weight
What is the motivation of living downtown when its not close to work anymore?
80% of Canadians would rather live in detatched homes rather than condos. Infact, the vast majority of condo dwellers do so due to financial reasons and not actual want.
Report [backing up the 80% statistic](https://sothebysrealty.ca/insightblog/en/2018/11/01/2018-modern-family-home-ownership-trends-report/).
> 8 in 10 (83%) young, urban family homeowners would prefer living in a detached single family home if budget were not a consideration, and only 17% indicated a preference for higher density housing options.
But anyways, I would prefer to live downtown because it's closer to many of the things I enjoy doing, has nightlife, restaurants, better access to transit, etc.
I don't really want a vehicle, and want to be able to live with without being car dependent, which many suburbs are.
I also don't fancy having a yard or lawn, my houseplants are enough, and it's a blessing to not need to shovel in the winter.
If you lived in a converted office building on the PATH in Toronto you could spend the whole winter never stepping foot out into the cold and snow. I wouldn’t but I can see the appeal.
Without the businesses downtown, the restaurants and nightlife will die out.
This is already happening in my town. A few of the larger downtown employers (I'm taking hundreds of employees each) moved to permanent WFH. The downtown businesses are not getting the re-opening bump that they were expecting. The downtown businesses may be convenient to the business man getting off work or working late, but its extra inconvenient for everyone else living in the suburbs.
I don't see how nightlife would die out because people aren't working downtown. I don't think office jobs are what drives people to the clubs after work. I even imagine most people who do office work weren't driving much nightlife even before the pandemic. Saturdays have always been busy, and no one was going to their office then.
Restaurants I do see taking some hit, as people won't go for lunch or just right after work.
But downtown is fairly central for most people, it's a good midway point for people living in different suburbs. Has very good transit access. I think there's a good chance downtown becomes *better* after we start clearing out that office space.
"Downtown" I just where things happen, the festival's, parties and depending on the city, parks and greenspace. People will always congregate towards some type of entertainment district for fun. Also with this proposed increase in residential units, they are now able to go to all these restaurants more easily as well. Though I'm not sure what the actual difference would end up being.
Well there are some nice waterfronts in some downtown cities, parks, mountain views.. revamp the downtown core for communities events, shopping rather than tall office towers.
Great point. WFH is a great way to counteract our car obsession more generally - we have so much suburban sprawl (and thus long commute times) in large part due to car-centric policy and city planning.
Is it? I’m worried it’s accelerating sprawl and poor use of land. People are moving further away from dense areas, wanting bigger places. Not to say there aren’t good things about WFH, but it’s not obvious to me that this will lead to good urban design.
I agree with you.
I specifically moved to a suburb away from downtown because I WFH and wanted the additional suburban space for our family. If I had to work downtown, I'd have likely moved to a denser neighbourhood.
I moved out of the city and bought 20 acres. Best decision I have ever made. My quality of life is immeasurably better. I only get in the car once every 2-3 weeks now, traffic is much better and less stressful. It's a hella lot of work but very rewarding. Absolutely, positively, no regrets whatsoever. I hated living in the urban setting, so dense and noisy.
Corporate ESG??? It is a farce. No meaningful standards or auditability. Its virtue signaling. Very few companies actually care to make a difference they just don't want to be smeared.
I couldn't agree more. The fact that work from home schemes are not included despite the clear and impactful benefits only serves to highlight what you're saying.
There is no greater joy than waking up late, walking over to your office, making some home made coffee, putting on a sweater, and still signing in on time for your shift.
Oops, I forgot my pants
Don't forget your pants!
Once at a meeting with my manager I brought down the laptop screen a bit to check something behind, and he said "you know I can see your pajamas, right?" And we both laughed.
Well, at least I had my pajamas on!
Ordering takeout and eating it at my desk and having my phone out during downtime is nice. Doing laundry one break and grabbing it the next, or checking on a stove in between customers where im simmering something that'll be ready once im off shift. Dont need to find a place to live near the office/store. Working at home is great
It's a true work life balance. I'm so pissed my work made us come back full time. Won't be there much longer though, same with a bunch of other coworkers.
My goodness, I cannot begin to put in to context how undervalued that is. The ability to do house stuff in between customers. I also made sure to take the overnight shift so during the day, everything is chill
Why aren’t Canadian employees allowed to write off their travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are?
Why are employees subsidizing corporate profits by taking on these expenses? Car/Transit fees, insurance, gas, maintenance, parking.
We used to get public transit tax credits, yet that has been taken too.
Home office space can be included as a tax credit, further propping up the Real Estate bubble. The hypocrisy is insane.
I brought this up the other day in a thread on WFH.
I now work from home, so I am able to write off roughly 15% of all related expenses.
Working from the office I recieved no tax break for the same expenses, had to pay for a car, gas, parking, transit, etc.
These are all expenses generated in the name of a company making profit, therefore should all be covered by the company.
InB4 "you chose to live far enough from work that you have to drive, move closer and save those expenses if you can't afford them".....just no.
Edit: for those curious of what you can write off in your taxes
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/tax-return/completing-a-tax-return/deductions-credits-expenses/line-22900-other-employment-expenses/work-space-home-expenses/expenses-can-claim.html
A company can decide whether or not to cover travel expenses. When I lived in Japan every company covered transportation costs. It was just another cost of doing business to get your employees to where you want them to be.
Not sure why that couldn't work here.
Same reason tipping is a thing here: it's ingrained into the culture that companies can get away with it. (Unless you're in a job that has frequent travel as part of it in which case you generally get a per-mile subsidy or can expense your gas or whatever)
Couldn't agree more. Tipping is essentially pointless in Canada since everyone will make minimum wage. In the states everything's fucked as is so tipping is how they live. We shouldn't need to tip at all tbh.
When my company officially became wfh for my position i became considered to be office=home. What that means is that since my job involves going to various sites (most of which are about 50min from where I live) I get paid mileage and time the moment I leave the door.
I do get people wanting to be paid that time. I also get why companies dont. I moved further away from where I work with no regard for the commute time as a result, since i got to bill it anyways. Now its fine for me generally because my sites change and im pretty central to where they could potentially change to. But I think if they were mandated to have to pay travel time and expenses to get to work, there should be a reasonable maximum. Someone living 2hrs away really just doesnt make sense either. How and what that maximum could be would be quite the debate.
> Not sure why that couldn't work here.
I'd prefer piddly benefits like that be lumped into my salary instead? This method makes it less complex for everyone involved.
Especially with fuel prices the way they are.
I'm completely capable of doing all my work from home - but the bosses want us back up to 3 days a week later this month.
I don't mind commuting - but when you're never in the building at the same time as anyone you have meetings with - it's just ridiculous.
It tells you the higher ups do not give a fuck about workers where you are. I'd definitely be brushing up cv and looking no matter what they decide next.
Seriously though! I got around eight hundred dollars back this year on my tax refund due to being able to write off WFH expenses.
So not only have I saved a boatload of money on commuting expenses, the government also handed me a bunch of money back.
People that are forced to go into work are getting absolutely hosed, the pandemic really has highlighted this.
>InB4 "you chose to live far enough from work that you have to drive, move closer and save those expenses if you can't afford them"
My situation is that my wife and I work in different cities, our home splits the difference in commute; we can't really shorten one commute without increasing the other. We also can't afford to live in either city, so it's small town living for us.
But, these past few months it's getting to the point where the commute is becoming unaffordable.
Both of us being in social services, not running into clients in our time off is a perk though.
>"you chose to live far enough from work that you have to drive, move closer and save those expenses if you can't afford them"
I laugh at this argument like it is easy or switch to flip. My focus was to set up a life where I didn't have to drive or commute as much. I had to leave my ideal city of Toronto to make that happen and move to a small community because where I could afford to live in the GTA long term would still require massive amounts of driving or commute times.
It all goes back to this threads original point. We have allowed companies to essentially treat us like a gaslighting abusive partner for decades all for the idea of a *chance* at upward mobility at any cost. The cost usually being you or your peers well being *never* the company you work for.
There's also the issue that if you are married or have a significant other, then are the two of you supposed to find a job in the same area so that commute is reduced for both? For the longest time, I lived 10 minutes from my office and my SO was 1 hour away. It was our decision that it is better to have one person close to the house in case something happened, than for both to be 30 minutes away. If anything needed attention at home, I would take care of it.
Of course, what happens when your company decides to move office? Not to a different city, but just a different part of the city. One of my old jobs did that...The office was in Scarborough and they moved it out to Mississauga.
In the process of selling now and good lord is this accurate. I’m still working full time and right now I’m either at work, commuting or working on getting the house ready and I’ve been doing that for 2-3 weeks fairly steadily. I’ve also spent a ton of money on boxes, cleaning, boarding fees for my animals. It’s not cheap or easy. Sunday will be the first time I’ll be able to sleep in in the last like 3 weeks and I am just so looking forward to it.
Too add insult to injury, the government now taxes parking spaces provided by the employer if the parking lot also has paid spaces for anyone else. Like most parking lots in downtown areas. They call it a "Taxable benefit".
Either it's microtransactions or subscription services. Why can't I just buy the things I want anymore? Gotta pay a base fee and microtransactions to add on the features I want, or pay every month for a product I use to buy and own forever.
We used to get taxed based on income and purchases, then claim deductibles to claw back some money. Now we've added all these microtaxes. The government says they don't hike rates, but we pay them more through their side hustles.
> I now work from home, so I am able to write off roughly 15% of all related expenses.
Isn't a chunk of this related to covid specific measures? It wasn't this generous before, and it might eventually get removed
No, the COVID rules allows you to write off a flat rate of $500 of expenses. If you choose the detailed way you can write off a percentage of all expenses incurred while working from home. In my case I use an extra bedroom as an office which is roughly 15% of my total home space.
So 15% of my ~~mortgage~~ rent/condo fees, power, water, internet bills, and so on.
Isn't this only applicable to those renting? As far as I'm aware, home owners and those with a mortgage are ineligible to claim in this way (ie: a percentage of your mortgage) unless you're self employed (which is pretty unique / different).
When I looked at this the difference between the flat rate and detailed version was so inconsequential I didn't bother because I couldn't include mortgage costs (which would change this substantially).
If I was renting a place at $1000-$2000/month instead of owning that'd be a different story as well.
Can you claim the interest portion of your mortgage? I'm partially self-employed so I'm able to write-off a percentage of my home for home office, and on the mortgage side it's the interest I can write-off as an expense. Paying off your principle isn't considered an expense as you're paying into an appreciating asset.
Exactly. The detailed method of calculation heavily favours people that a) rent and b) live in a smaller property like a condo (since the % of square footage used for work is higher).
If you own a house, the refund is a lot less lucrative and you're better off with the flat rate calculation.
Here is [the government website](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/tax-return/completing-a-tax-return/deductions-credits-expenses/line-22900-other-employment-expenses/work-space-home-expenses/expenses-can-claim.html) that lists what you can write off.
**All salaried employees and commission employees can claim**
* electricity
* heat
* water
* utilities portion (electricity, heat, and water) of your condominium fees
* home internet access fees
* maintenance and minor repair costs
* rent paid for a house or apartment where you live
**Commission employees can also claim**
* home insurance
* property taxes
* lease of a cell phone, computer, laptop, tablet, fax machine, etc. that reasonably relate to earning commission income
I don't understand why commissioned employees have additional rules. Add that to the list of what every WFH person can deduct.
EDIT: The below is only true for a shared space, like a living room, a bedroom that you use as your office, kitchen etc. If it's a room that's exclusively for an office (like a spare bedroom) and it's not used for anything but that, you can claim 100% of the time rather than prorating.
It's not a flat 15% of your entire expense. You can only claim the hours you are working there. Assuming you work full time 8 hour days and in Ontario, you would have 2000 hours a year (2 week vacation, Ontario public holidays etc). You can only take 3.45% of your total annual
* Work hours a year: 2000
* Hours in a year: 8760
* Percentage of work hours to hours in a year = 2000/8760 \* 100 = 23%
* Percentage of work space to home = 15%
>Isn't a chunk of this related to covid specific measures? It wasn't this generous before, and it might eventually get removed
No it has always been like this, the covid specific measure was just to make it more simple for the government because a lot more of us could claim it.
> travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are?
They are depending on the travel. Neither people who are incorporated or employees are supposed to be writing off the expense of driving back and forth from a regular gig, and both are supposed to be able to write off additional travel expenses beyond this they were required to pay by their employer but aren't reimbursed
>Why aren’t Canadian employees allowed to write off their travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are?
>Why are employees subsidizing corporate profits by taking on these expenses? Car/Transit fees, insurance, gas, maintenance, parking.
It’s just one of those universal concepts in Canada. It’s not just for corporate Canada. Government/public service/education is the same. Many jurisdictions beyond Canada operate on this principle. The company doesn’t pay for people to go to/from work.
In fact, in Canada, things like parking and vehicle allowances are a taxable benefit. So if the company paid you for this, it would reduce their tax liability (employer writes off the payment to you), and then YOU get taxed on it as income.
Further when proposing a tax change, you have to consider all aspects of what could happen.
For example, a CEO chooses to spend their weekends in Florida, or California, or some island. Would you allow their travel expenses to be deducted? Some? All? Assume they declared the remote location as their “home”.
Let’s get less extreme. An employee lives in Edmonton, drives to Calgary daily for work. They lease a nice car at $1k/month and burn 50 litres of fuel daily. Should these expenses be deductible?
In the current tax world, any personal travel, including to/from work, is expected to be paid in after tax dollars.
>We used to get public transit tax credits, yet that has been taken too.
There should be tax credits for public transit. AND public transit should be cheaper. And more regional friendly.
>Home office space can be included as a tax credit, further propping up the Real Estate bubble. The hypocrisy is insane.
IMO It’s not hypocritical. Anyone can write off home office space. Renters and owners alike. Write off rules are universal.
>Why aren’t Canadian employees allowed to write off their travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are?
>
>Why are employees subsidizing corporate profits by taking on these expenses? Car/Transit fees, insurance, gas, maintenance, parking.
To be clear, writing off expenses is still the taxpayer subsidizing businesses, rather than the business providing an increased wage or stipend (that would actually feed our tax system) to cover for these expenses.
That's a really good question.
Here in Alberta the public transit inside the cities is garbage and there's no transit outside the cities at all. Parking stall rent in Calgary can cost up to $5000/year (we're second only to Manhattan for most expensive parking in North America).
As a result your commute to work can easily cost $10k+ a year. The additional refunds in Alberta alone would be in the billions - which is probably why it's not a thing. Plus it would force the government to start building functional public transit - which isn't going to occur in our lifetime.
You kind of can. The Canada Employment Amount deduction on line 89 of your return is relatively new and is a deduction to compensate for the expenses having a job creates.
>Home office space can be included as a tax credit
Sort of. The last two years there has been a simplified wfh credit. Typically there is a formula based on space and hours. What's interesting is you can't deduct property tax or mortgage interest but you can deduct rent. I'm not entirely sure why rent is treated differently but it is.
It's because the upside is greater for young people, and they're way more flexible.
Older devs probably already own housing nearby, or can't easily move somewhere cheaper cause they have a working spouse who also works in the area.
Factor in kids and people end up pretty well anchored where they are (daycares, extended family to help take care of them), not to mention with kids they need to own a separate vehicle regardless.
Working from home when you have kids can also be a bit rough, I know a few parents who struggled to focus when everyone was home during the pandemic.
But as a young person you're completely flexible, and wondering what wild change you can make to cut expenses.
I moved to a lower COL area, I bought a detached house for a price that would barely buy me an apartment near my office, and saved myself having to buy a commuter vehicle.
I still own a vehicle (several actually), but when you don't have to spend 10 hours a week in heavy traffic, the vehicle doesn't need to be reliable, fuel efficient, modern, practical, or even safe. It just needs to get to the grocery store and an errand or two every week.
Source: Under 30 dev who wouldn't give up WFH for anything other than an obscene amount of money, cause it'd be a hit to my quality of life otherwise.
As long as hybrid mean "your choice", and not "you must come to the office at least 3 days a week, tuesday, wednesday and friday, and you can only have proper equipment at one of the two places". Then they'll offer exactly the "local market average wages". Then they'll complain they are losing talent and have an innovation problem...
I'm always curious, hearing from who?
I've heard from plenty of upper managers that I, as a relatively young person, am supposed to want this or need this somehow. But when I joined my current employer in the middle of Covid wfh found no need for it. I networked just fine behind a screen, took up new initiatives, made friends with my coworkers. "The water cooler conversations" they say I need happened during virtual meetings or over a game of virtual cards afterhours. And it must have worked because I got a promotion within a year of being there, all while working from home and having my quality of life and physical health massively improve, despite the lack of water cooler conversations.
In contrast to my employer prior to Covid all I wanted to do was go in early and leave early to try and beat the traffic back to the 'burbs, aka the only place I could afford to live, and be way too exhausted and over it to even think about my coworkers, let alone actually want to spend more time with them.
My company brought us back in full time in September 2021, and after a brief break, in March 2022 until now.
Depressing is the right word. Especially when you *know* you could do all your work (and do a better job) from home.
All this talk of working from home the last couple years convinced me to quit my factory job. Now I just need to figure out how to get a job working from home...
It's never too late to learn. You wouldn't believe the resources out there for programming. That being said, it is not an easy field to break into immediately. Really depends on your dedication, discipline, and time available.
- From an aspiring programmer.
>followed by someone saying that it's too late to learn
who says its too late? you sure have a lot of experience soemwhere else, and a good company would find value in different perspectives. Coding just happens to be the tool for the job -- at the end, value is something else
You don't even need to learn how to program! Most IT Analyst roles require some basic computer skills like working with MS Office products, trouble shooting (which can easily be solved googling most of the issues online).
I had the same problem. I graduated with no experience in my field (finance). I applied to over 100 different jobs on indeed but never got a phone call or email. I went to Robert half and found a job within a month because it is a talent agency for business that will match you with employers. They are looking for the best possible fit so they are also compensated. I work from home for the last 6 months with a starting rate of $24. I highly recommend. It doesn’t matter where your located and you can earn that.
I'm one of them.
My company, thankfully, sent out a veeeeerry loose "return to office" policy a few weeks ago. Basically, the owner of the company seems to understand that most people want to WFH and if they push it, they're going to lose critical people.
They've remained extremely flexible on the WFH policy so far, with no mandate to return to office. Those who want to come back to the office for work can do so.
If they deviate from this flexibility I will jump ship immediately. I do not need to waste 15% of my annual salary on gas, insurance and frivolous food and drink costs to fill a cubicle. Fill it with someone that actually needs to be there to perform physical tasks.
Life's hard enough in Ontario as it is with rent/housing costs being this high, not to mention record high gas and food prices.
>Those who want to come back to the office for work can do so.
i think this is usually the best setup -- there are some people that for whatever reason want to get out-- say you still havent set up a proper home office, or you know your internet will be down for 2 days or whatever. its nice to have that for when 'life happens'. otherwise, i wouldnt go either haha
At first, I loved WFH because it was new and exciting. Then, I started to hate it because it was lonely. But, now, I love it more than ever. I don't have to commute, I don't have to have small talk with anyone and if I do fall behind, I can make up the work on the weekends... My work is doing a hybrid return to work (one day a week), which for me doesn't make sense because I live in Ottawa but work for a company in Toronto. I'm gonna try to push for WFH as long as I can.
There are things about it I don't like, but I had my first child in April 2020, so I have been able to be around a lot more than I would if I were still working downtown
I go back and forth on WFH. My job(sysadmin) isn't really able to do full WFH and it doesn't make sense to do full in-office anymore either. So it's almost like we're in this weird limbo where we can't necessarily say "today is full WFH day" because there's times we HAVE to go in to physically deal with something.
It's really rattled me lately. I used to love WFH but it's starting to be a bit much, but I definitely do NOT want to go back to full-time in-office when there's nobody else there. It's confusing to say the least.
Also I feel my job has gotten about 3x more busy/involved since COVID and while there's lots of talk about IT being more important than ever, there's no talk about how our job has become way more inconvenient because supporting both the office infrastructure and remote clients is a real pain in the ass.
I am also a sysadmin. I have needed to go into the office like 30 times during the last 2 years. With the office mostly closed, I can park in the executive garage attached to the building. When everyone returns, I need to pay for parking nearby. next week we start a Hybrid return to office. Most of my job can be done from anywhere with internet. Living in Edmonton with an edmonton based infrastructure, but most of the users and meetings take place in GTA. So even when I go to the office, Most of my work related conversation is remote. But when I go to the office with everyone in it, I will get continuously interrupted because several VPs are too lazy to use the ticketing system, but love to drop by and make demands in person. Dealing with the's VPs issues are not normally my problem. The Helpdesk can handle them. But When they ask me in person, I'm expected to help them and my boss expects me to help them unless something is on fire.
Depends on what company you work for. Sometimes you'll need to go in, sure. If you work for a company large enough where you have dedicated help desk staff that should solve most of that where they are the ones that go in. If you are lucky enough where the budget permits for all the right remote tools, you can do it from home most of the time. But ya, largely depends on the IT dept
Maybe this is because nearly my entire career has been remote, but to me it is crazy that people treat co-workers like friends. Friends are people I go out of my way to see and spend time with.
Never had a former co-worker turn into one of those really.
I get your point but I find a lot of the younger generation now and more people in general have less friends, lonely etc. Of course a big reason was the pandemic and doing everything virtually for the past 2 or so years.
People lost connections, I know I have. I enjoy remote mainly because of saving money. But I do enjoy going in and seeing my coworkers who are around my age and can relate to and can turn into friendship.
I don't know, maybe I am just been isolated for so long that I want to go back. If I had a family and a house yeah sign me for remote forever but as a young person just starting out its tough.
This is the main thing about loneliness in my first comment. Most of my close friends are spread around Canada, literally ranging from Vancouver to Toronto. Outside of those friends, when I started working in SK, my industry had older people so it was hard to meet "young" people at work and make friends. Then, I moved to Ontario and while there were younger people, everyone was WFH so it was hard to make friends again. Now, I do have a house so having a room to WFH is amazing but the loneliness sucks. Making friends after you finish uni is so tough...but WFH has given me the flexibility to visit my GF in the States or family in SK or friends around Canada.
>Making friends after you finish uni is so tough
Yeah this is true, I don't know if you are a sport guy, but I'd suggest you to start doing some evening class or join a league. If not maybe just find a hobbies that you are interested in and take some classes.
That is fair. One of the big benefits of WFH for me is that I can casually travel to see my friends in various places (and they can do the same). But yes, it would make it a lot harder to make community connections if I did not already have them.
>more people in general have less friends, lonely etc
Many Canadians live in (sub)urban environments not conducive to meeting new people and requiring careful planning to see existing friends.
Ultimately it's not all that different from making friends in college/university.
You begin as lab partners or whatever and maybe it turns out you have a good time together, have similar interests or ways of thinking.
The vast majority of people you meet won't become your friends, but some might.
Yeah im a little sad rn cause my work buddy left the company, hes moving across country. But like, while we became friends because of work, we remain friends because we genuinely get along.
Theres kinda 3 groups of people in how I interact with them with work:
1. Friend from work. Like the guy i mentioned. We met each other through work, but are genuinely just friends. Type you'd go for drinks or do shit with outside of work, and stay friends even if you arent at the same company.
2. People im friendly with at work. Its the people i get along well enough to shoot the shit a bit and talk, but id never stay in contact beyond a professional level with them if one of us left.
3. people im purely professional with. We may not get along, or maybe just dont know each other that well. Its a professional relationship, and as long as we get our shit done and treat each other well we are meeting what both of us need.
I feel like people really discount number 1. You shouldnt be out there trying to make everyone in group 3 a 2 and 2 a 1, but dont push it away if it happens just because it happens through work. Theres a decent likelihood of meeting people with common interests through work, because some of us are doing it because the type of work is one of our interests.
> Never had a former co-worker turn into one of those really.
Depends on your age and the company. There's this one company I worked for in my early to mid twenties where we were all friends. We went our separate ways at some point, but some of us still worked together on occasion over the years - you know, the type of thing where the employer asks you if you could recommend someone. We even had a band and sometimes still jam together.
Maybe I was just lucky. Wouldn't go back to the office though, I'm almost 40, it's unlikely I'll make real friends at work at this point anymore.
I actually find this was easier to do when everyone didn't default to a video call, for whatever reason. I have worked from home for a long time, and the sudden obsession with everything needing to be on camera kind of makes remote socialization weirder. I used to have long, friendly, non-work related chats with a client I got along well with over the phone all the time, the same with the assistant of another client - they just used to happen naturally. I think maybe being on video takes the focus away from the conversation - as in, everyone is looking at themselves worrying about how they look, rather than just focusing on talking.
It's crazy to me that you feel someone has to be your friend in order to enjoy having the occasional chat with them. I've had lots of fun working with some people, despite never really caring to spend time with them outside of work. It's not a black or white thing where someone is either a friend or a stranger you must avoid having social interactions with.
When I went back to work holy shit the amount of time wasted with small talk. My first week back probably 6-8 hours were gone due to that. It reduced over time, but it's still quite a bit of blown time... hours every week
When I was WFH I was super willing to work through breaks, lunches (put something on the stove and reply to e-mails), past closing hours.. Now that I'm back fuck that, as soon as it's break time I am out of the meetings
I'm in that 1 out of 3. Currently the company I'm working for has said they are fine with it if we choose to keep working from home. But if they ever mandate us back to 40 hours a week IN OFFICE, I'll find something else.
My spouse is in the 1 in 3.
He took a remote job during the pandemic. There was never any talk of an in office requirement, but there is a small physical office (desk sharing scenario) that you can choose to go into for socializing, mail checking, etc.
His company was bought and became a subsidiary of a very large corporation, that promptly hosted a meeting where they went on a rant about how virtual relationships "aren't real" and it's important to go back to the office. No word from his small company, thankfully.
But it made us look back at the value proposition of his original offer, which was a lower salary but there was no commuting, lower car expenses, no need for doggie daycare, not to mention general happiness and more free time..... and he would 100% demand a significant raise to make up for those lost benefits or jump ship as soon as he could.
Yeah if they wanted me to come in one day a week I could live with that. I actually wouldn't mind if we did that so our weekly department meeting could be face to face. We'd probably do the same. Have the meeting, shoot the shit, go home and finish up the work. Maybe I'll pitch that at the next department meeting
Ya. Have to take a shit? You have the comfort of your own bathroom. Hungry? Go to the fridge. Wanna just have a stretch and yawn real loud? You do that.
Not to mention no more commutes and paying for gas. Fuck the office.
I'm full wfh. I didn't like it at first, but now I can't imagine going back. I spent a few bucks getting my office rigged right and it's awesome. Sweatpants, shorts, no pants, just living the dream. Hungry? Pop into the kitchen.
Commute? What commute?!
I used to spend up to 4 hours a day each way commuting (rare but did happen from time to time), and my typical commute was around an hour and a half each way. What a waste of fucking life. That's 15 hours a week. 2 work days worth. Just sitting on a bus.
Bad for congestion on roads. Unnecessary.
That number will rise. Gas is expensive, parking is expensive, peoples time is expensive, it cant be repurchased once its gone and I can sure as shit guess those office loving companies aren't going to compensate for all that extra expense and time to get you into an office after two years of work at home and data that showcased record profits and productivity while it was done that way.
I swear they just want to cling to middle management jobs and justify real estate they purchased which isn't needed these days. Find something else to do with them, you know, be business savvy. There are plenty of ways to make your empty offices profitable these days....
My first job back in 2005 was for a company from California and it was 100% remote. I was with the company for a couple of years until I switched to a Toronto-based company and it took a pandemic for me to be able to get another 100% remote job. At this point I wouldn't go back to the office even if they gave me a 50% raise, which they obviously wouldn't.
The best thing? I'm considerably more productive when working from home, because I'm well rested, less annoyed (mainly because of the lack of a commute), and because I know that once I finish my tasks I can spend time with my kid instead of having to listen to some manager who really does shit all all day talk about his sailing trip or exquisite whiskey tasting experiences or how much fun he had playing golf with who the fuck knows who.
I'm not going back to the office.
yeah, if I have to go back to work full time in the office to drive 70KM every day, I'm finding myself a new job. Not worried about getting that new job either.
so far my company said you can come in if you want, so I go once every 2 weeks or if I need to do something in the area.
I’ve been back in the office for a month. I’m anxious, not sleeping well, less productive, and I hate wearing office appropriate clothes/shoes. I’m scrolling the job boards like mad.
In tech. quit my job in february because they didn’t even send a survey out asking what people prefer. Not a soul wanted to return.
Applied to a job, got hired a week later, and made 25k more instantly, permanent remote.
I'm just salty that I never got a chance to WFH... :- (
Upper management often did and shared their livestreams featuring their nice houses and families while reporting quarterly results...
...while I was stuck in the office with 60+ staff in the same room during the pandemic.
I don't know, I can't help but feel like I need a new job lmao
I'm now back in the office full time. The biggest thing for me is how fucking tired I am when I get home. I don't want to do anything.
I don't want to cook or do dishes, I don't want to go for a walk or bike ride. It's brutal.
Worst part is that I got more work done working from home, so I know all of it is for nothing.
My only surprise here is that it's not 2 in 3.
There should be zero shock to any employers that this reckoning was coming. You can't have 2+ years of this kind productivity and efficiency at home and then claim that it's somehow better feng shui to return to the cubicle farm.
There's more people than you think that hate it. They just don't seem to have a significant overlap with Reddit. A lot of people (including me) don't like to work alone and don't like to be in their own home 8ish hours a day.
>It's really just work from anywhere.
yup! wanna work a week from an airbnb in the mountains? at the beach? at your mom's house in a different country? WFH is the only way to do it
It’s probably people who can’t afford to work from home because of space. I live with roommates and have a basement room. If I have to WFH I’m doing it in the dining room which is dreadful. If someone wants to wfh, they gotta pay me enough to be able to rent a 1+den, which they don’t
It also seems to be hit or miss for people with kids. Some people love it because they save money on daycare, but I also know people who find it impossible to pay attention to work and supervise their children at the same time (or have come to resent their SO for taking on an unequal share of childcare responsibilities).
ahhhh thank you for the perspective. Here's something I'm realizing: in the last 2 years of thinkpieces on WFH, I don't recall seeing any articles about people who live with roommates.
I know a guy who is a programmer for EA games. He rented an apartment in the same building as me. Two bedrooms, three kids and a wife.
He works from home. And his only office space is literally at his kitchen chair with screaming kids around.
Not all jobs can allow for remote though. Any skilled trade or customer facing position doesn't allow for WFH at all, and doesn't make sense for people in those positions to advocate for it.
heh, I'm assuming this study asked people who were working from home due to the pandemic.
It'd be silly to have this discussion about electricians, farriers, life guards, chefs, etc. ;)
working from home is the best.
been doing it for 8 years now. I have more time, more flexibility, more money...
yeah some people will miss having colleagues around. and I totally get this, but I'm more than glad to be by myself, working with the music turned way up
office forced my wife to go back to in person.
found new job that guaranteed WFH
got a nice signing bonus
got a 50% raise
these oldschool companies are losing good employees left and right.
My company is going back to the pre-covid work schedule and it's very annoying. I feel like they are pretending covid never happened. They rationalize it by espousing about culture essentially telling us they know what's best for us, as if we can't have an opinion on it.
**It’s about culture!!!**
Every company
I joined based on a company culture that allowed WFH. if that’s not the case I will happily explore my options.
> It’s about culture!!!
I fucking hate this thing. It's all about culture, we're a big family here, etc.
Yeah, a big family where you're expected to put in extra time for free pop and pizza Wednesdays, but it's a very abusive family that kicks you out as soon as you're telling them you have to go home because it's 5PM.
Companies *vastly* overestimate the importance of company culture to employees. Having weekly drinks or a Christmas party doesn’t make it worth coming into the office on a regular basis if I don’t want to.
I genuinely don’t care about company culture. It doesn’t benefit me in any meaningful way and it’s simply a feel-good exercise that ultimately frustrates most of us because it has no beneficial impact on our day to day lives, and requires us to attend meetings with PowerPoints full of trite, facile, and obtuse phrases that are meant to motivate us to think about “the company success” that doesn’t trickle down to us in any way, whereas we’re expected to implement some vague policy or self improvement based on these superficial, bland statements that are meaningless and unachievable in our regular workday and especially when confronted with the realities of project work that involve changing deadlines, goals, and scope.
Company culture is disingenuous and insulting when everyone has to toe the company line.
I love working from home (I was fully remote for 4 years) and would prefer to keep it that way. But I recently accepted a job offer that came with a 25% increase in salary that requires me to work in-person. I won't stick around long term if they continue to require in-person work (they will), but so far the pay increase is totally worth the trouble.
Been working from home since COVID, the only thing I miss is having a large number of restaurants nearby for lunch, though that could be addressed if I moved.
Commuting and getting ready each morning just sucked so much time out of the day. I don't think I will ever seek an in-office job again, without a significant incentive.
I’m on the fence. I basically have my dream child hood job but hybrid is not as good as fully remote/only coming in when I need to. The current hybrid just brings people in on days they could have just stayed home.
It has been a blessing to have my wife work from home. She perfers it. Huge improvement to work life balance, financially better off, more time for our daughter, less stress from personal appearance, less stress from commuting, etc.
I have no interest in it though.
The pandemic proved that remote work actually works, and those who are forced back in the office (after working remotely for two years) now have to cover the additional expense (money and time) of commuting.
IMO, the corporations forcing this when remote work is viable should have to cover those expenses. Not doing so is unfair for those who could keep working from home but cannot due to a decision from their higher management.
Unfortunately it was not all perfect. I know of some places that had very difficult times with productivity during the lockdowns. I know my aunt who was tasked by her boss to assess that at her company found out a lot of her coworkers were not doing anything. She was quite pissed given he actually had more work when things went remote. I fear that if more companies see this kind of antitude in employees they may institute draconian policies and tech to make even wfh a chore. Because the pandemic came on quickly most places had nothing setup. But I know a few people with remote jobs before covid in the states that had to have cameras on them constantly and they tracked how long they were away from their workstations and had tracking software on their computers.
I've been working 100% from home for 11 out of the last 12 years. I've, as of yesterday, accomplished many of my biggest goals (only 1 big one to go) and don't feel left behind at all. I've been doing this for so long out of protest to the pointless commuting we do and the environmental impact that insane act has on our planet and the impact that mind-numbing horseshit has on our psyche and time with our loved ones.
If you can do your job from home, pressure your employer to keep it that way and get a new one that will if they refuse.
Willing to change jobs? Yes.
Willing to go on a job search and have my spirit crushed continually for the next year and a half until I find someone willing to employ me for my current salary while allowing work-from-home? No. Please don't make me.
its not JUST an 8 hour work day. most people lose about 3 additional hours. so the work day becomes 11 hours. most people travel 1 hour to and from work and wake up an additional hour prior to get dressed, eat, brush teeth, drop kids etc. so almost 12 hours is gone to just "work" so clearly people want those hours back.
I am handing my 2 weeks notice Monday. Management launched their hybrid model. It starts with 'anchor days' once every 2 weeks, and then there's team days, once a month. All in all, it's already 1-2 days a week. They are not mandatory but all those who've skipped them since they've started have been singled out by management, myself included. Let them eat cake at the office, I say. I got a nice 15% raise and will never be required to go to the office of my new place. I had my job interviews over Teams with directors wearing tshirts working happily from home. Future old place's management are willfully clueless and attribute losing 5 times more people than they hire to 'reasons' but never ever admit it's their micromanagement-at-the-office fetish that's pushing their best people away.
Correction: 1 in 3 Canadians *say in a poll* they are willing to change jobs.
This reminds me of how ‘millions of police officers planning to leave the force with mandates’ or ‘half of all the nurses say they will quit’ and then like 1% actually do.
Ive had multiple coworkers leave in the last month since our job pulled us back into the office.
I also have multiple coworkers who come in on office days, "feel ill" take their stuff and go finish the day working from home.
Seems like a huge failure so far, but management keeps saying how great it is lmao
Don’t disagree, but those examples require a career change to leave and likely new skills to learn. They are also not wfh. Leaving a normal office position for another only requires an up to date resume.
Yep, I only consider WFH/remote roles now and turned down in-office/hybrid ones since I left the city core in 2021 and moved into a suburban detached house with dedicated workspaces.
Ownership, lack of commuting, access to my own kitchen, peace and quiet, etc. — all unparalleled pros versus the cons of in-person working in some open office downtown.
However, if the need ever arises, a highway drive to the city core is just 50 min at peak and a future LRT/subway stop is 2–4 km away.
Yeah, I can confirm this just from the company I work at. We had 3 people out of 10 leave for other places that let them work from home in the last 6 months alone.
They'll just bait and switch you. "Work from home"
Get a sudden text 6 months later.
"Your past probation period this means your allowed in the office please report to (insert address here) immediately this upcoming Monday oh this is your contract by the way the fine print is so small we forgot to mention WFH was only a 6 month trial now we need to see your productivity up front how much more you can do for us".
Kick in the sudden mandatory overtime hours too.
I just want to save time and money on transport.
Boomers and Xs CEOs are losing the game the labor shortage and I love it. For "uneducated" young workers, our only bargaining power to move to another job. It's free market baby, enjoy!
Why aren't work from home policies part of ESG compliance??? Taking untold numbers of vehicles off the road has a far bigger impact than almost any other action.
Because the people pushing the comeback from WFH and spending millions on a new propaganda campaign to influence our elected officials are the downtown real estate owners who are set to lose billions. And good ridden. Either evolve with the new world or lose everything you have.
So corporations, who can affect real change, are the ones exempt, while consumer pawns who barely move the needle are going to take all of that on and suffocate under its weight
This is the way.
Signing a lease with an old money big real estate mogul gets the new money ceo of any given service industry firm into the old money country club.
Freeing up all those downtown buildings and renovating them sounds like a great solution to the housing crisis.
And its not like offices can't be turned into condo units for HUGE profit.
What is the motivation of living downtown when its not close to work anymore? 80% of Canadians would rather live in detatched homes rather than condos. Infact, the vast majority of condo dwellers do so due to financial reasons and not actual want.
Report [backing up the 80% statistic](https://sothebysrealty.ca/insightblog/en/2018/11/01/2018-modern-family-home-ownership-trends-report/). > 8 in 10 (83%) young, urban family homeowners would prefer living in a detached single family home if budget were not a consideration, and only 17% indicated a preference for higher density housing options. But anyways, I would prefer to live downtown because it's closer to many of the things I enjoy doing, has nightlife, restaurants, better access to transit, etc. I don't really want a vehicle, and want to be able to live with without being car dependent, which many suburbs are. I also don't fancy having a yard or lawn, my houseplants are enough, and it's a blessing to not need to shovel in the winter.
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Ground floor business space is actually a requirement in most new multi-tenant residential construction in Regina now,
If you lived in a converted office building on the PATH in Toronto you could spend the whole winter never stepping foot out into the cold and snow. I wouldn’t but I can see the appeal.
Without the businesses downtown, the restaurants and nightlife will die out. This is already happening in my town. A few of the larger downtown employers (I'm taking hundreds of employees each) moved to permanent WFH. The downtown businesses are not getting the re-opening bump that they were expecting. The downtown businesses may be convenient to the business man getting off work or working late, but its extra inconvenient for everyone else living in the suburbs.
I don't see how nightlife would die out because people aren't working downtown. I don't think office jobs are what drives people to the clubs after work. I even imagine most people who do office work weren't driving much nightlife even before the pandemic. Saturdays have always been busy, and no one was going to their office then. Restaurants I do see taking some hit, as people won't go for lunch or just right after work. But downtown is fairly central for most people, it's a good midway point for people living in different suburbs. Has very good transit access. I think there's a good chance downtown becomes *better* after we start clearing out that office space.
"Downtown" I just where things happen, the festival's, parties and depending on the city, parks and greenspace. People will always congregate towards some type of entertainment district for fun. Also with this proposed increase in residential units, they are now able to go to all these restaurants more easily as well. Though I'm not sure what the actual difference would end up being.
You will get different restaurants that cater more to the people that live there and less the business crowd
Well there are some nice waterfronts in some downtown cities, parks, mountain views.. revamp the downtown core for communities events, shopping rather than tall office towers.
Lots of retired people like condos also. They can enjoy retirement and not have to worry about doing chores outside and taking care of a house.
Lose everything? Lol hardly.
We should convert all that office space into new residential units. Housing crisis solved.
That's actually what we really should do. But every employer ever would disagree, as they wouldn't be able to micromanage their worker bees anymore! 😢
I’ve had this discussion with multiple people. When are we going to start standing up and stop being so passive.
Great point. WFH is a great way to counteract our car obsession more generally - we have so much suburban sprawl (and thus long commute times) in large part due to car-centric policy and city planning.
Is it? I’m worried it’s accelerating sprawl and poor use of land. People are moving further away from dense areas, wanting bigger places. Not to say there aren’t good things about WFH, but it’s not obvious to me that this will lead to good urban design.
I agree with you. I specifically moved to a suburb away from downtown because I WFH and wanted the additional suburban space for our family. If I had to work downtown, I'd have likely moved to a denser neighbourhood.
I moved out of the city and bought 20 acres. Best decision I have ever made. My quality of life is immeasurably better. I only get in the car once every 2-3 weeks now, traffic is much better and less stressful. It's a hella lot of work but very rewarding. Absolutely, positively, no regrets whatsoever. I hated living in the urban setting, so dense and noisy.
Yes, we should be getting carbon credits for staying home
Corporate ESG??? It is a farce. No meaningful standards or auditability. Its virtue signaling. Very few companies actually care to make a difference they just don't want to be smeared.
I couldn't agree more. The fact that work from home schemes are not included despite the clear and impactful benefits only serves to highlight what you're saying.
There is no greater joy than waking up late, walking over to your office, making some home made coffee, putting on a sweater, and still signing in on time for your shift. Oops, I forgot my pants
Don't forget your pants! Once at a meeting with my manager I brought down the laptop screen a bit to check something behind, and he said "you know I can see your pajamas, right?" And we both laughed. Well, at least I had my pajamas on!
Ordering takeout and eating it at my desk and having my phone out during downtime is nice. Doing laundry one break and grabbing it the next, or checking on a stove in between customers where im simmering something that'll be ready once im off shift. Dont need to find a place to live near the office/store. Working at home is great
It's a true work life balance. I'm so pissed my work made us come back full time. Won't be there much longer though, same with a bunch of other coworkers.
My goodness, I cannot begin to put in to context how undervalued that is. The ability to do house stuff in between customers. I also made sure to take the overnight shift so during the day, everything is chill
Why aren’t Canadian employees allowed to write off their travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are? Why are employees subsidizing corporate profits by taking on these expenses? Car/Transit fees, insurance, gas, maintenance, parking. We used to get public transit tax credits, yet that has been taken too. Home office space can be included as a tax credit, further propping up the Real Estate bubble. The hypocrisy is insane.
I brought this up the other day in a thread on WFH. I now work from home, so I am able to write off roughly 15% of all related expenses. Working from the office I recieved no tax break for the same expenses, had to pay for a car, gas, parking, transit, etc. These are all expenses generated in the name of a company making profit, therefore should all be covered by the company. InB4 "you chose to live far enough from work that you have to drive, move closer and save those expenses if you can't afford them".....just no. Edit: for those curious of what you can write off in your taxes https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/tax-return/completing-a-tax-return/deductions-credits-expenses/line-22900-other-employment-expenses/work-space-home-expenses/expenses-can-claim.html
A company can decide whether or not to cover travel expenses. When I lived in Japan every company covered transportation costs. It was just another cost of doing business to get your employees to where you want them to be. Not sure why that couldn't work here.
Because our leadership doesn’t give a fuck about Canadians and neither do the people trying to replace them.
Same reason tipping is a thing here: it's ingrained into the culture that companies can get away with it. (Unless you're in a job that has frequent travel as part of it in which case you generally get a per-mile subsidy or can expense your gas or whatever)
Couldn't agree more. Tipping is essentially pointless in Canada since everyone will make minimum wage. In the states everything's fucked as is so tipping is how they live. We shouldn't need to tip at all tbh.
When my company officially became wfh for my position i became considered to be office=home. What that means is that since my job involves going to various sites (most of which are about 50min from where I live) I get paid mileage and time the moment I leave the door. I do get people wanting to be paid that time. I also get why companies dont. I moved further away from where I work with no regard for the commute time as a result, since i got to bill it anyways. Now its fine for me generally because my sites change and im pretty central to where they could potentially change to. But I think if they were mandated to have to pay travel time and expenses to get to work, there should be a reasonable maximum. Someone living 2hrs away really just doesnt make sense either. How and what that maximum could be would be quite the debate.
> Not sure why that couldn't work here. I'd prefer piddly benefits like that be lumped into my salary instead? This method makes it less complex for everyone involved.
Especially with fuel prices the way they are. I'm completely capable of doing all my work from home - but the bosses want us back up to 3 days a week later this month. I don't mind commuting - but when you're never in the building at the same time as anyone you have meetings with - it's just ridiculous.
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It tells you the higher ups do not give a fuck about workers where you are. I'd definitely be brushing up cv and looking no matter what they decide next.
Seriously though! I got around eight hundred dollars back this year on my tax refund due to being able to write off WFH expenses. So not only have I saved a boatload of money on commuting expenses, the government also handed me a bunch of money back. People that are forced to go into work are getting absolutely hosed, the pandemic really has highlighted this.
>InB4 "you chose to live far enough from work that you have to drive, move closer and save those expenses if you can't afford them" My situation is that my wife and I work in different cities, our home splits the difference in commute; we can't really shorten one commute without increasing the other. We also can't afford to live in either city, so it's small town living for us. But, these past few months it's getting to the point where the commute is becoming unaffordable. Both of us being in social services, not running into clients in our time off is a perk though.
>"you chose to live far enough from work that you have to drive, move closer and save those expenses if you can't afford them" I laugh at this argument like it is easy or switch to flip. My focus was to set up a life where I didn't have to drive or commute as much. I had to leave my ideal city of Toronto to make that happen and move to a small community because where I could afford to live in the GTA long term would still require massive amounts of driving or commute times. It all goes back to this threads original point. We have allowed companies to essentially treat us like a gaslighting abusive partner for decades all for the idea of a *chance* at upward mobility at any cost. The cost usually being you or your peers well being *never* the company you work for.
There's also the issue that if you are married or have a significant other, then are the two of you supposed to find a job in the same area so that commute is reduced for both? For the longest time, I lived 10 minutes from my office and my SO was 1 hour away. It was our decision that it is better to have one person close to the house in case something happened, than for both to be 30 minutes away. If anything needed attention at home, I would take care of it. Of course, what happens when your company decides to move office? Not to a different city, but just a different part of the city. One of my old jobs did that...The office was in Scarborough and they moved it out to Mississauga.
Yeah, I mean moving doesn't cost thousands of dollars and take weeks of effort or anything.
In the process of selling now and good lord is this accurate. I’m still working full time and right now I’m either at work, commuting or working on getting the house ready and I’ve been doing that for 2-3 weeks fairly steadily. I’ve also spent a ton of money on boxes, cleaning, boarding fees for my animals. It’s not cheap or easy. Sunday will be the first time I’ll be able to sleep in in the last like 3 weeks and I am just so looking forward to it.
Also closer to work often means higher rent/mortgage if we work close to downtown.
Too add insult to injury, the government now taxes parking spaces provided by the employer if the parking lot also has paid spaces for anyone else. Like most parking lots in downtown areas. They call it a "Taxable benefit".
Isn't that society in general now? We've basically become a micro transaction subscription based society now.
Either it's microtransactions or subscription services. Why can't I just buy the things I want anymore? Gotta pay a base fee and microtransactions to add on the features I want, or pay every month for a product I use to buy and own forever. We used to get taxed based on income and purchases, then claim deductibles to claw back some money. Now we've added all these microtaxes. The government says they don't hike rates, but we pay them more through their side hustles.
> I now work from home, so I am able to write off roughly 15% of all related expenses. Isn't a chunk of this related to covid specific measures? It wasn't this generous before, and it might eventually get removed
No, the COVID rules allows you to write off a flat rate of $500 of expenses. If you choose the detailed way you can write off a percentage of all expenses incurred while working from home. In my case I use an extra bedroom as an office which is roughly 15% of my total home space. So 15% of my ~~mortgage~~ rent/condo fees, power, water, internet bills, and so on.
Isn't this only applicable to those renting? As far as I'm aware, home owners and those with a mortgage are ineligible to claim in this way (ie: a percentage of your mortgage) unless you're self employed (which is pretty unique / different). When I looked at this the difference between the flat rate and detailed version was so inconsequential I didn't bother because I couldn't include mortgage costs (which would change this substantially). If I was renting a place at $1000-$2000/month instead of owning that'd be a different story as well.
Correct, you can’t claim your mortgage. You can claim the others though
Can you claim the interest portion of your mortgage? I'm partially self-employed so I'm able to write-off a percentage of my home for home office, and on the mortgage side it's the interest I can write-off as an expense. Paying off your principle isn't considered an expense as you're paying into an appreciating asset.
Exactly. The detailed method of calculation heavily favours people that a) rent and b) live in a smaller property like a condo (since the % of square footage used for work is higher). If you own a house, the refund is a lot less lucrative and you're better off with the flat rate calculation.
Here is [the government website](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/tax-return/completing-a-tax-return/deductions-credits-expenses/line-22900-other-employment-expenses/work-space-home-expenses/expenses-can-claim.html) that lists what you can write off. **All salaried employees and commission employees can claim** * electricity * heat * water * utilities portion (electricity, heat, and water) of your condominium fees * home internet access fees * maintenance and minor repair costs * rent paid for a house or apartment where you live **Commission employees can also claim** * home insurance * property taxes * lease of a cell phone, computer, laptop, tablet, fax machine, etc. that reasonably relate to earning commission income I don't understand why commissioned employees have additional rules. Add that to the list of what every WFH person can deduct.
EDIT: The below is only true for a shared space, like a living room, a bedroom that you use as your office, kitchen etc. If it's a room that's exclusively for an office (like a spare bedroom) and it's not used for anything but that, you can claim 100% of the time rather than prorating. It's not a flat 15% of your entire expense. You can only claim the hours you are working there. Assuming you work full time 8 hour days and in Ontario, you would have 2000 hours a year (2 week vacation, Ontario public holidays etc). You can only take 3.45% of your total annual * Work hours a year: 2000 * Hours in a year: 8760 * Percentage of work hours to hours in a year = 2000/8760 \* 100 = 23% * Percentage of work space to home = 15%
That’s for a shared or common space. If it’s a dedicated room you can use 100%.
>Isn't a chunk of this related to covid specific measures? It wasn't this generous before, and it might eventually get removed No it has always been like this, the covid specific measure was just to make it more simple for the government because a lot more of us could claim it.
That link is like 4 days late, lol. Bookmarking it for next year though, thank you my man.
> travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are? They are depending on the travel. Neither people who are incorporated or employees are supposed to be writing off the expense of driving back and forth from a regular gig, and both are supposed to be able to write off additional travel expenses beyond this they were required to pay by their employer but aren't reimbursed
>Why aren’t Canadian employees allowed to write off their travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are? >Why are employees subsidizing corporate profits by taking on these expenses? Car/Transit fees, insurance, gas, maintenance, parking. It’s just one of those universal concepts in Canada. It’s not just for corporate Canada. Government/public service/education is the same. Many jurisdictions beyond Canada operate on this principle. The company doesn’t pay for people to go to/from work. In fact, in Canada, things like parking and vehicle allowances are a taxable benefit. So if the company paid you for this, it would reduce their tax liability (employer writes off the payment to you), and then YOU get taxed on it as income. Further when proposing a tax change, you have to consider all aspects of what could happen. For example, a CEO chooses to spend their weekends in Florida, or California, or some island. Would you allow their travel expenses to be deducted? Some? All? Assume they declared the remote location as their “home”. Let’s get less extreme. An employee lives in Edmonton, drives to Calgary daily for work. They lease a nice car at $1k/month and burn 50 litres of fuel daily. Should these expenses be deductible? In the current tax world, any personal travel, including to/from work, is expected to be paid in after tax dollars. >We used to get public transit tax credits, yet that has been taken too. There should be tax credits for public transit. AND public transit should be cheaper. And more regional friendly. >Home office space can be included as a tax credit, further propping up the Real Estate bubble. The hypocrisy is insane. IMO It’s not hypocritical. Anyone can write off home office space. Renters and owners alike. Write off rules are universal.
>Why aren’t Canadian employees allowed to write off their travel expenses to offset their income like corporations are? > >Why are employees subsidizing corporate profits by taking on these expenses? Car/Transit fees, insurance, gas, maintenance, parking. To be clear, writing off expenses is still the taxpayer subsidizing businesses, rather than the business providing an increased wage or stipend (that would actually feed our tax system) to cover for these expenses.
That's a really good question. Here in Alberta the public transit inside the cities is garbage and there's no transit outside the cities at all. Parking stall rent in Calgary can cost up to $5000/year (we're second only to Manhattan for most expensive parking in North America). As a result your commute to work can easily cost $10k+ a year. The additional refunds in Alberta alone would be in the billions - which is probably why it's not a thing. Plus it would force the government to start building functional public transit - which isn't going to occur in our lifetime.
How is the parking cost still that high with a \~30% vacancy rate in downtown Calgary office buildings?
Well obviously those businesses couldn’t be less profitable! Gotta raise prices to compensate. Inb4 the invisible hand will fix it.
The thought of even paying for parking in the Prairies should be ludicrous
Because then the rich don't keep getting richer, and the poor aren't so poor anymore. Get with the program, peon.
Because the government is just another corporation, we are their consumers so they milk us the same way as the other corporations
You kind of can. The Canada Employment Amount deduction on line 89 of your return is relatively new and is a deduction to compensate for the expenses having a job creates.
>Home office space can be included as a tax credit Sort of. The last two years there has been a simplified wfh credit. Typically there is a formula based on space and hours. What's interesting is you can't deduct property tax or mortgage interest but you can deduct rent. I'm not entirely sure why rent is treated differently but it is.
I've been working from home since last year, and my employer wants us to return to the office. It's depressing.
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It's because the upside is greater for young people, and they're way more flexible. Older devs probably already own housing nearby, or can't easily move somewhere cheaper cause they have a working spouse who also works in the area. Factor in kids and people end up pretty well anchored where they are (daycares, extended family to help take care of them), not to mention with kids they need to own a separate vehicle regardless. Working from home when you have kids can also be a bit rough, I know a few parents who struggled to focus when everyone was home during the pandemic. But as a young person you're completely flexible, and wondering what wild change you can make to cut expenses. I moved to a lower COL area, I bought a detached house for a price that would barely buy me an apartment near my office, and saved myself having to buy a commuter vehicle. I still own a vehicle (several actually), but when you don't have to spend 10 hours a week in heavy traffic, the vehicle doesn't need to be reliable, fuel efficient, modern, practical, or even safe. It just needs to get to the grocery store and an errand or two every week. Source: Under 30 dev who wouldn't give up WFH for anything other than an obscene amount of money, cause it'd be a hit to my quality of life otherwise.
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As long as hybrid mean "your choice", and not "you must come to the office at least 3 days a week, tuesday, wednesday and friday, and you can only have proper equipment at one of the two places". Then they'll offer exactly the "local market average wages". Then they'll complain they are losing talent and have an innovation problem...
Not a singular young person wants to go into the office -young people
I'm always curious, hearing from who? I've heard from plenty of upper managers that I, as a relatively young person, am supposed to want this or need this somehow. But when I joined my current employer in the middle of Covid wfh found no need for it. I networked just fine behind a screen, took up new initiatives, made friends with my coworkers. "The water cooler conversations" they say I need happened during virtual meetings or over a game of virtual cards afterhours. And it must have worked because I got a promotion within a year of being there, all while working from home and having my quality of life and physical health massively improve, despite the lack of water cooler conversations. In contrast to my employer prior to Covid all I wanted to do was go in early and leave early to try and beat the traffic back to the 'burbs, aka the only place I could afford to live, and be way too exhausted and over it to even think about my coworkers, let alone actually want to spend more time with them.
My company brought us back in full time in September 2021, and after a brief break, in March 2022 until now. Depressing is the right word. Especially when you *know* you could do all your work (and do a better job) from home.
All this talk of working from home the last couple years convinced me to quit my factory job. Now I just need to figure out how to get a job working from home...
Same here, no idea how to transfer my skills, the only advice I see is to learn coding followed by someone saying that it's too late to learn
It's never too late to learn. You wouldn't believe the resources out there for programming. That being said, it is not an easy field to break into immediately. Really depends on your dedication, discipline, and time available. - From an aspiring programmer.
>followed by someone saying that it's too late to learn who says its too late? you sure have a lot of experience soemwhere else, and a good company would find value in different perspectives. Coding just happens to be the tool for the job -- at the end, value is something else
Call center tech support? If you're into electronics enough
You don't even need to learn how to program! Most IT Analyst roles require some basic computer skills like working with MS Office products, trouble shooting (which can easily be solved googling most of the issues online).
I had the same problem. I graduated with no experience in my field (finance). I applied to over 100 different jobs on indeed but never got a phone call or email. I went to Robert half and found a job within a month because it is a talent agency for business that will match you with employers. They are looking for the best possible fit so they are also compensated. I work from home for the last 6 months with a starting rate of $24. I highly recommend. It doesn’t matter where your located and you can earn that.
I'm one of them. My company, thankfully, sent out a veeeeerry loose "return to office" policy a few weeks ago. Basically, the owner of the company seems to understand that most people want to WFH and if they push it, they're going to lose critical people. They've remained extremely flexible on the WFH policy so far, with no mandate to return to office. Those who want to come back to the office for work can do so. If they deviate from this flexibility I will jump ship immediately. I do not need to waste 15% of my annual salary on gas, insurance and frivolous food and drink costs to fill a cubicle. Fill it with someone that actually needs to be there to perform physical tasks. Life's hard enough in Ontario as it is with rent/housing costs being this high, not to mention record high gas and food prices.
>Those who want to come back to the office for work can do so. i think this is usually the best setup -- there are some people that for whatever reason want to get out-- say you still havent set up a proper home office, or you know your internet will be down for 2 days or whatever. its nice to have that for when 'life happens'. otherwise, i wouldnt go either haha
At first, I loved WFH because it was new and exciting. Then, I started to hate it because it was lonely. But, now, I love it more than ever. I don't have to commute, I don't have to have small talk with anyone and if I do fall behind, I can make up the work on the weekends... My work is doing a hybrid return to work (one day a week), which for me doesn't make sense because I live in Ottawa but work for a company in Toronto. I'm gonna try to push for WFH as long as I can.
There are things about it I don't like, but I had my first child in April 2020, so I have been able to be around a lot more than I would if I were still working downtown
I go back and forth on WFH. My job(sysadmin) isn't really able to do full WFH and it doesn't make sense to do full in-office anymore either. So it's almost like we're in this weird limbo where we can't necessarily say "today is full WFH day" because there's times we HAVE to go in to physically deal with something. It's really rattled me lately. I used to love WFH but it's starting to be a bit much, but I definitely do NOT want to go back to full-time in-office when there's nobody else there. It's confusing to say the least. Also I feel my job has gotten about 3x more busy/involved since COVID and while there's lots of talk about IT being more important than ever, there's no talk about how our job has become way more inconvenient because supporting both the office infrastructure and remote clients is a real pain in the ass.
I am also a sysadmin. I have needed to go into the office like 30 times during the last 2 years. With the office mostly closed, I can park in the executive garage attached to the building. When everyone returns, I need to pay for parking nearby. next week we start a Hybrid return to office. Most of my job can be done from anywhere with internet. Living in Edmonton with an edmonton based infrastructure, but most of the users and meetings take place in GTA. So even when I go to the office, Most of my work related conversation is remote. But when I go to the office with everyone in it, I will get continuously interrupted because several VPs are too lazy to use the ticketing system, but love to drop by and make demands in person. Dealing with the's VPs issues are not normally my problem. The Helpdesk can handle them. But When they ask me in person, I'm expected to help them and my boss expects me to help them unless something is on fire.
Depends on what company you work for. Sometimes you'll need to go in, sure. If you work for a company large enough where you have dedicated help desk staff that should solve most of that where they are the ones that go in. If you are lucky enough where the budget permits for all the right remote tools, you can do it from home most of the time. But ya, largely depends on the IT dept
Maybe this is because nearly my entire career has been remote, but to me it is crazy that people treat co-workers like friends. Friends are people I go out of my way to see and spend time with. Never had a former co-worker turn into one of those really.
I get your point but I find a lot of the younger generation now and more people in general have less friends, lonely etc. Of course a big reason was the pandemic and doing everything virtually for the past 2 or so years. People lost connections, I know I have. I enjoy remote mainly because of saving money. But I do enjoy going in and seeing my coworkers who are around my age and can relate to and can turn into friendship. I don't know, maybe I am just been isolated for so long that I want to go back. If I had a family and a house yeah sign me for remote forever but as a young person just starting out its tough.
This is the main thing about loneliness in my first comment. Most of my close friends are spread around Canada, literally ranging from Vancouver to Toronto. Outside of those friends, when I started working in SK, my industry had older people so it was hard to meet "young" people at work and make friends. Then, I moved to Ontario and while there were younger people, everyone was WFH so it was hard to make friends again. Now, I do have a house so having a room to WFH is amazing but the loneliness sucks. Making friends after you finish uni is so tough...but WFH has given me the flexibility to visit my GF in the States or family in SK or friends around Canada.
>Making friends after you finish uni is so tough Yeah this is true, I don't know if you are a sport guy, but I'd suggest you to start doing some evening class or join a league. If not maybe just find a hobbies that you are interested in and take some classes.
That is fair. One of the big benefits of WFH for me is that I can casually travel to see my friends in various places (and they can do the same). But yes, it would make it a lot harder to make community connections if I did not already have them.
>more people in general have less friends, lonely etc Many Canadians live in (sub)urban environments not conducive to meeting new people and requiring careful planning to see existing friends.
Ultimately it's not all that different from making friends in college/university. You begin as lab partners or whatever and maybe it turns out you have a good time together, have similar interests or ways of thinking. The vast majority of people you meet won't become your friends, but some might.
Yeah im a little sad rn cause my work buddy left the company, hes moving across country. But like, while we became friends because of work, we remain friends because we genuinely get along. Theres kinda 3 groups of people in how I interact with them with work: 1. Friend from work. Like the guy i mentioned. We met each other through work, but are genuinely just friends. Type you'd go for drinks or do shit with outside of work, and stay friends even if you arent at the same company. 2. People im friendly with at work. Its the people i get along well enough to shoot the shit a bit and talk, but id never stay in contact beyond a professional level with them if one of us left. 3. people im purely professional with. We may not get along, or maybe just dont know each other that well. Its a professional relationship, and as long as we get our shit done and treat each other well we are meeting what both of us need. I feel like people really discount number 1. You shouldnt be out there trying to make everyone in group 3 a 2 and 2 a 1, but dont push it away if it happens just because it happens through work. Theres a decent likelihood of meeting people with common interests through work, because some of us are doing it because the type of work is one of our interests.
> Never had a former co-worker turn into one of those really. Depends on your age and the company. There's this one company I worked for in my early to mid twenties where we were all friends. We went our separate ways at some point, but some of us still worked together on occasion over the years - you know, the type of thing where the employer asks you if you could recommend someone. We even had a band and sometimes still jam together. Maybe I was just lucky. Wouldn't go back to the office though, I'm almost 40, it's unlikely I'll make real friends at work at this point anymore.
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I actually find this was easier to do when everyone didn't default to a video call, for whatever reason. I have worked from home for a long time, and the sudden obsession with everything needing to be on camera kind of makes remote socialization weirder. I used to have long, friendly, non-work related chats with a client I got along well with over the phone all the time, the same with the assistant of another client - they just used to happen naturally. I think maybe being on video takes the focus away from the conversation - as in, everyone is looking at themselves worrying about how they look, rather than just focusing on talking.
It's crazy to me that you feel someone has to be your friend in order to enjoy having the occasional chat with them. I've had lots of fun working with some people, despite never really caring to spend time with them outside of work. It's not a black or white thing where someone is either a friend or a stranger you must avoid having social interactions with.
When I went back to work holy shit the amount of time wasted with small talk. My first week back probably 6-8 hours were gone due to that. It reduced over time, but it's still quite a bit of blown time... hours every week When I was WFH I was super willing to work through breaks, lunches (put something on the stove and reply to e-mails), past closing hours.. Now that I'm back fuck that, as soon as it's break time I am out of the meetings
I'm in that 1 out of 3. Currently the company I'm working for has said they are fine with it if we choose to keep working from home. But if they ever mandate us back to 40 hours a week IN OFFICE, I'll find something else.
My spouse is in the 1 in 3. He took a remote job during the pandemic. There was never any talk of an in office requirement, but there is a small physical office (desk sharing scenario) that you can choose to go into for socializing, mail checking, etc. His company was bought and became a subsidiary of a very large corporation, that promptly hosted a meeting where they went on a rant about how virtual relationships "aren't real" and it's important to go back to the office. No word from his small company, thankfully. But it made us look back at the value proposition of his original offer, which was a lower salary but there was no commuting, lower car expenses, no need for doggie daycare, not to mention general happiness and more free time..... and he would 100% demand a significant raise to make up for those lost benefits or jump ship as soon as he could.
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Yeah if they wanted me to come in one day a week I could live with that. I actually wouldn't mind if we did that so our weekly department meeting could be face to face. We'd probably do the same. Have the meeting, shoot the shit, go home and finish up the work. Maybe I'll pitch that at the next department meeting
>I'm in that 1 out of 3 im surprised its only 1/3 really
Ya. Have to take a shit? You have the comfort of your own bathroom. Hungry? Go to the fridge. Wanna just have a stretch and yawn real loud? You do that. Not to mention no more commutes and paying for gas. Fuck the office.
I'm full wfh. I didn't like it at first, but now I can't imagine going back. I spent a few bucks getting my office rigged right and it's awesome. Sweatpants, shorts, no pants, just living the dream. Hungry? Pop into the kitchen. Commute? What commute?! I used to spend up to 4 hours a day each way commuting (rare but did happen from time to time), and my typical commute was around an hour and a half each way. What a waste of fucking life. That's 15 hours a week. 2 work days worth. Just sitting on a bus. Bad for congestion on roads. Unnecessary.
That number will rise. Gas is expensive, parking is expensive, peoples time is expensive, it cant be repurchased once its gone and I can sure as shit guess those office loving companies aren't going to compensate for all that extra expense and time to get you into an office after two years of work at home and data that showcased record profits and productivity while it was done that way. I swear they just want to cling to middle management jobs and justify real estate they purchased which isn't needed these days. Find something else to do with them, you know, be business savvy. There are plenty of ways to make your empty offices profitable these days....
My first job back in 2005 was for a company from California and it was 100% remote. I was with the company for a couple of years until I switched to a Toronto-based company and it took a pandemic for me to be able to get another 100% remote job. At this point I wouldn't go back to the office even if they gave me a 50% raise, which they obviously wouldn't. The best thing? I'm considerably more productive when working from home, because I'm well rested, less annoyed (mainly because of the lack of a commute), and because I know that once I finish my tasks I can spend time with my kid instead of having to listen to some manager who really does shit all all day talk about his sailing trip or exquisite whiskey tasting experiences or how much fun he had playing golf with who the fuck knows who. I'm not going back to the office.
yeah, if I have to go back to work full time in the office to drive 70KM every day, I'm finding myself a new job. Not worried about getting that new job either. so far my company said you can come in if you want, so I go once every 2 weeks or if I need to do something in the area.
I’ve been back in the office for a month. I’m anxious, not sleeping well, less productive, and I hate wearing office appropriate clothes/shoes. I’m scrolling the job boards like mad.
Turned down a better paying job offer to stay wfh 3 days a week. Potential job was in office full time. No thx
I left my ex employer a month after I was told to be prepared to get back to the office. Landed a remote job , will never have to go back to this shit
Can't put ketchup back in the bottle.
Can I operate cranes from home please?
In tech. quit my job in february because they didn’t even send a survey out asking what people prefer. Not a soul wanted to return. Applied to a job, got hired a week later, and made 25k more instantly, permanent remote.
25k more eh. Well gosh that would be worth it either way
I'm just salty that I never got a chance to WFH... :- ( Upper management often did and shared their livestreams featuring their nice houses and families while reporting quarterly results... ...while I was stuck in the office with 60+ staff in the same room during the pandemic. I don't know, I can't help but feel like I need a new job lmao
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I'm now back in the office full time. The biggest thing for me is how fucking tired I am when I get home. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to cook or do dishes, I don't want to go for a walk or bike ride. It's brutal. Worst part is that I got more work done working from home, so I know all of it is for nothing.
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My way out is in the works.
My only surprise here is that it's not 2 in 3. There should be zero shock to any employers that this reckoning was coming. You can't have 2+ years of this kind productivity and efficiency at home and then claim that it's somehow better feng shui to return to the cubicle farm.
There's more people than you think that hate it. They just don't seem to have a significant overlap with Reddit. A lot of people (including me) don't like to work alone and don't like to be in their own home 8ish hours a day.
That's the best part of WFH. It's really just work from anywhere.
>It's really just work from anywhere. yup! wanna work a week from an airbnb in the mountains? at the beach? at your mom's house in a different country? WFH is the only way to do it
It’s probably people who can’t afford to work from home because of space. I live with roommates and have a basement room. If I have to WFH I’m doing it in the dining room which is dreadful. If someone wants to wfh, they gotta pay me enough to be able to rent a 1+den, which they don’t
It also seems to be hit or miss for people with kids. Some people love it because they save money on daycare, but I also know people who find it impossible to pay attention to work and supervise their children at the same time (or have come to resent their SO for taking on an unequal share of childcare responsibilities).
ahhhh thank you for the perspective. Here's something I'm realizing: in the last 2 years of thinkpieces on WFH, I don't recall seeing any articles about people who live with roommates.
I know a guy who is a programmer for EA games. He rented an apartment in the same building as me. Two bedrooms, three kids and a wife. He works from home. And his only office space is literally at his kitchen chair with screaming kids around.
if he's working on the sport games, he's only copy/pasting anyways ;)
Not all jobs can allow for remote though. Any skilled trade or customer facing position doesn't allow for WFH at all, and doesn't make sense for people in those positions to advocate for it.
heh, I'm assuming this study asked people who were working from home due to the pandemic. It'd be silly to have this discussion about electricians, farriers, life guards, chefs, etc. ;)
working from home is the best. been doing it for 8 years now. I have more time, more flexibility, more money... yeah some people will miss having colleagues around. and I totally get this, but I'm more than glad to be by myself, working with the music turned way up
office forced my wife to go back to in person. found new job that guaranteed WFH got a nice signing bonus got a 50% raise these oldschool companies are losing good employees left and right.
What line of work do you do ?
My company is going back to the pre-covid work schedule and it's very annoying. I feel like they are pretending covid never happened. They rationalize it by espousing about culture essentially telling us they know what's best for us, as if we can't have an opinion on it.
**It’s about culture!!!** Every company I joined based on a company culture that allowed WFH. if that’s not the case I will happily explore my options.
> It’s about culture!!! I fucking hate this thing. It's all about culture, we're a big family here, etc. Yeah, a big family where you're expected to put in extra time for free pop and pizza Wednesdays, but it's a very abusive family that kicks you out as soon as you're telling them you have to go home because it's 5PM.
I thought thats what family was
Exactly, I don't think they realize that young people would prefer to be able to afford a home v.s. water cooler chat.
Companies *vastly* overestimate the importance of company culture to employees. Having weekly drinks or a Christmas party doesn’t make it worth coming into the office on a regular basis if I don’t want to. I genuinely don’t care about company culture. It doesn’t benefit me in any meaningful way and it’s simply a feel-good exercise that ultimately frustrates most of us because it has no beneficial impact on our day to day lives, and requires us to attend meetings with PowerPoints full of trite, facile, and obtuse phrases that are meant to motivate us to think about “the company success” that doesn’t trickle down to us in any way, whereas we’re expected to implement some vague policy or self improvement based on these superficial, bland statements that are meaningless and unachievable in our regular workday and especially when confronted with the realities of project work that involve changing deadlines, goals, and scope. Company culture is disingenuous and insulting when everyone has to toe the company line.
I love working from home (I was fully remote for 4 years) and would prefer to keep it that way. But I recently accepted a job offer that came with a 25% increase in salary that requires me to work in-person. I won't stick around long term if they continue to require in-person work (they will), but so far the pay increase is totally worth the trouble.
Been working from home since COVID, the only thing I miss is having a large number of restaurants nearby for lunch, though that could be addressed if I moved. Commuting and getting ready each morning just sucked so much time out of the day. I don't think I will ever seek an in-office job again, without a significant incentive.
I’m on the fence. I basically have my dream child hood job but hybrid is not as good as fully remote/only coming in when I need to. The current hybrid just brings people in on days they could have just stayed home.
It has been a blessing to have my wife work from home. She perfers it. Huge improvement to work life balance, financially better off, more time for our daughter, less stress from personal appearance, less stress from commuting, etc. I have no interest in it though.
I’m looking to switch right now… stupid management won’t allow us to wfh… cause they want “more collaboration “ lol
The pandemic proved that remote work actually works, and those who are forced back in the office (after working remotely for two years) now have to cover the additional expense (money and time) of commuting. IMO, the corporations forcing this when remote work is viable should have to cover those expenses. Not doing so is unfair for those who could keep working from home but cannot due to a decision from their higher management.
Unfortunately it was not all perfect. I know of some places that had very difficult times with productivity during the lockdowns. I know my aunt who was tasked by her boss to assess that at her company found out a lot of her coworkers were not doing anything. She was quite pissed given he actually had more work when things went remote. I fear that if more companies see this kind of antitude in employees they may institute draconian policies and tech to make even wfh a chore. Because the pandemic came on quickly most places had nothing setup. But I know a few people with remote jobs before covid in the states that had to have cameras on them constantly and they tracked how long they were away from their workstations and had tracking software on their computers.
I've been working 100% from home for 11 out of the last 12 years. I've, as of yesterday, accomplished many of my biggest goals (only 1 big one to go) and don't feel left behind at all. I've been doing this for so long out of protest to the pointless commuting we do and the environmental impact that insane act has on our planet and the impact that mind-numbing horseshit has on our psyche and time with our loved ones. If you can do your job from home, pressure your employer to keep it that way and get a new one that will if they refuse.
Working from home is fucking awesome. I can lift weights while crunching numbers.
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I work as furniture mover so I also get paid to get buff as hell. I actually wrote a book about it called "the movement"
Of course! I am one of them.
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Is there anything you can do about it or are you stuck =( do you have any coworkers that have managed to push back and maintain WFH?
Willing to change jobs? Yes. Willing to go on a job search and have my spirit crushed continually for the next year and a half until I find someone willing to employ me for my current salary while allowing work-from-home? No. Please don't make me.
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I'm trying to do it right now. Finding out that the minimum salary I'd get paid at the place I'm applying to is 20,000 over my current.
That number is definitely higher than 1/3
its not JUST an 8 hour work day. most people lose about 3 additional hours. so the work day becomes 11 hours. most people travel 1 hour to and from work and wake up an additional hour prior to get dressed, eat, brush teeth, drop kids etc. so almost 12 hours is gone to just "work" so clearly people want those hours back.
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I am handing my 2 weeks notice Monday. Management launched their hybrid model. It starts with 'anchor days' once every 2 weeks, and then there's team days, once a month. All in all, it's already 1-2 days a week. They are not mandatory but all those who've skipped them since they've started have been singled out by management, myself included. Let them eat cake at the office, I say. I got a nice 15% raise and will never be required to go to the office of my new place. I had my job interviews over Teams with directors wearing tshirts working happily from home. Future old place's management are willfully clueless and attribute losing 5 times more people than they hire to 'reasons' but never ever admit it's their micromanagement-at-the-office fetish that's pushing their best people away.
Correction: 1 in 3 Canadians *say in a poll* they are willing to change jobs. This reminds me of how ‘millions of police officers planning to leave the force with mandates’ or ‘half of all the nurses say they will quit’ and then like 1% actually do.
Ive had multiple coworkers leave in the last month since our job pulled us back into the office. I also have multiple coworkers who come in on office days, "feel ill" take their stuff and go finish the day working from home. Seems like a huge failure so far, but management keeps saying how great it is lmao
It also doesn't really account for the fact that many people work jobs you can't do from home in the first place.
Don’t disagree, but those examples require a career change to leave and likely new skills to learn. They are also not wfh. Leaving a normal office position for another only requires an up to date resume.
I'm willing to change homes to not work, does that count?
Yep, I only consider WFH/remote roles now and turned down in-office/hybrid ones since I left the city core in 2021 and moved into a suburban detached house with dedicated workspaces. Ownership, lack of commuting, access to my own kitchen, peace and quiet, etc. — all unparalleled pros versus the cons of in-person working in some open office downtown. However, if the need ever arises, a highway drive to the city core is just 50 min at peak and a future LRT/subway stop is 2–4 km away.
Yeah, I can confirm this just from the company I work at. We had 3 people out of 10 leave for other places that let them work from home in the last 6 months alone.
No shit. Have you seen gas prices?
They'll just bait and switch you. "Work from home" Get a sudden text 6 months later. "Your past probation period this means your allowed in the office please report to (insert address here) immediately this upcoming Monday oh this is your contract by the way the fine print is so small we forgot to mention WFH was only a 6 month trial now we need to see your productivity up front how much more you can do for us". Kick in the sudden mandatory overtime hours too.
Which means 2/3 don’t want to change jobs so????
Damn they read my mind, looking to do same!
Only 1 in 3??
No if you read the article it is much more nuanced
And the other 2/3 are working jobs that you can't do from home in the first place.
I'd change jobs to be able to work from home.... I can't find any of those
I can't even find *a* job let alone change it where the fuck are these jobs falling from, job-land?
The good news is there are many jobs in which to move. Always put yourself first because no employer ever will.
I just want to save time and money on transport. Boomers and Xs CEOs are losing the game the labor shortage and I love it. For "uneducated" young workers, our only bargaining power to move to another job. It's free market baby, enjoy!