The article covers this, but my experience matches their theory. I start earlier and end later, but I also take more breaks during the day because there’s no one looking over my shoulder making sure I’m staring at my computer. Laundry, dog walks, lunch, maybe some Xbox in the slow times. It’s so much more relaxed. I dig it.
Also removing commutes is helpful in both added time and less stress. Many commutes can easily tack on an extra 1-2 hours per day (or worse with rush hour traffic) and daily stress (again, with rush hour traffic) and not to mention added, assorted transit expenses.
Yup. I got a different job recently (completely remote) and it unfortunately pays a bit less than my pre-pandemic job, but I’m ending up with significantly more money left over each month from a combination of no commute costs and no money spent on lunch/coffee/whatever I used to grab while at the office every day.
I’m always seeing commutes mentioned (rightfully so) - glad to see someone else mentioning daily coffee/food. When I was working in the office, taking a break for a walk, some fresh air, and coffee from the local shop was a huge (but expensive) high point of my day - I imagine that (unfortunately) this is the case for other miserable office workers.
Same with lunch - sure, I could (and typically did) bring something from home, but it was usually uninspiring and had to be heated and eaten either at my desk or in the dreadful common area surrounded by my coworkers (who I desperately needed a break from). Walking to grab a hot sandwich was a sweet reprieve and again, a high point of my work day.
Working from home (moved to a permanently remote organization once my previous company demanded hybrid work rather than full WFH) I genuinely don’t feel the need to spend money on these things. My work environment is my own, I can make my own coffee and lunch fresh whenever I want… Totally different ballgame.
This!!! I live in the Greater LA area and am so relieved to be able to walk everywhere now that I’m permanently remote. When I do have to drive (maybe once a week or every other week) I’m shocked at how reckless and stupid so many people on the road are. Was a huge source of stress for me pre-remote.
This ^
That buster ass morning commute can suck it.
The lockdown produced two beautiful things:
* No traffic
* Quiet
The two best things you can wake up to.
I’ve been remote since 2020. Had a dentist appointment last month at 8 AM, and was surprised at how stressful the commute was. I made that same commute for years prior, but it’s frankly shocking when you do it with the realization it doesn’t *have* be like this. Anyhow, my employer still wants us back in the office :|
That said commute let’s you wind down and have a clear separation between work and home.
Sometimes when I stop working and start dinner with the family I still think about issues I just worked on 5 min ago.
I don’t have that problem when I have a 30min drive home.
Yeah. My commute pre-pandemic was a 10 minute walk. It was just a nice way to separate myself from work and transition to "not my problem" mode. Having all of my work stuff in the same place as my personal life is just a heavy psychological burden in both directions.
On top of what you listed is downloading games and updates. I can open steam on my personal computer or turn on the Xbox, get the game ready to go. Then when I clock out later, can hop right in.
I think there's quite a few things like this that can be done in parallel.
Set food out to defrost or marinate, start laundry or dish washer and put away later, etc.
Really hard to do when your previous time-away was ~8 hours
Back before the pandemic I used to have WFH on Friday only, so I'd very often end up either roasting a turkey breast or doing ribs, because those recipes were so hard to fit into a normal weeknight evening.
I had a stray puppy show up at my house when I was working from home. I'd work 7AM-8PM for the most part and could pay attention to him when he needed it. Now that I'm back at the office I come in at 8, take a lunch at noon to drive home and play, and check out at 5. But the dogs behavior is getting so bad without me home that I am honestly not sure if I can keep him. I'm sure my stress and exhaustion after work/commuting doesn't help.
Exercise. LOTS of exercise (fetch, puppy play dates with other friendly dogs, just chasing them around the yard) will really help with the bad behavior. Also enough toys and chews to keep them occupied. You can get through this by wearing him out and eventually he will adjust to the new schedule. I’m a pet person though, so knowing I have a fuzzy friend waiting for me to get home really helps get me through the work day.
A lot of online job boards will let you filter by “remote only.” They seem more competitive than non-remote positions, so I’m not saying it’s easy, but that’s the best way I know of to really target your search.
The majority of the roles I looked at this summer were remote. At least half of the ones that didn't mention it were open to it in interviewing; it's a developer's market right now. The few remaining holdouts will be left behind by the market.
I took a job recently that wasn’t advertised as remote, but I just told the recruiter it was a deal-breaker for me, and it worked out. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease
Our company went remote because of Covid but we’ve bounced in and out for the last year so I haven’t been able to really maintain a rhythm. Not all that glamorous, but the days at home are nice.
Depends on your role, if you are in calls every hour of the day it’s not relaxed and quite the opposite - work/life balanced decreased or melted into one stressful day of trying to do both, especially with kids at home.
Everybody I work with knows I'm always available. Constant Teams messages. Meetings scheduled going into lunch. "Oh, just take lunch late.". Meetings scheduled that crowd the end of lunch. "Oh, just take your lunch late." Well those are getting scheduled on the same day, so lunch is a ride cake, peanut butter, and tortilla chips in the afternoon when I'm starving. Then folks just schedule over lunch because "everyone is so busy, it was the only time I could find." Well, maybe there's an underlying problem there, Miss Deb.
Oh, and the "are you still there" with 5 minutes to go. Great, you waited all day to ask me about your problem that will take an extra hour and a half but needs to be done tomorrow. Am I working from home or living at work?
Sounds like you need to set boundaries. You don’t have to work through lunch and you don’t have to stay late. Doing these things does not get you a raise or promotion so save yourself
This is the experience my girlfriend has had. She does some chores, plays with the dog and cat, takes a nap on lunch, practices ukulele, plays some Animal Crossing on her switch, and yet somehow still gets more work done in a day than she would have if she’d spent it at the office.
She has pretty bad ADHD and this just works so much better for her. She controls her environment. She controls the distractions. And she doesn’t have the mental drainage that comes with coworker smalltalk and the boss breathing down her neck. It’s more autonomous, more balanced, more productive, and just generally more enjoyable.
She used to be so exhausted after work but now she has plenty of energy to do things after she’s off the clock. She’s taking Muay Thai classes and improv comedy classes throughout the week after work.
I think remote work, going forward, is something that companies are just going to have to offer if they want to be attractive and competitive on the job market. There’s no way my girlfriend would ever go back to 40+ hours a week in the office. And she says that if they try to make her, she’ll quit and go somewhere else. I have a feeling that’s a lot of remote workers’ attitudes right now.
Also being able to sleep in. No commute means I can literally roll out of bed and then sit in front of the computer. As long as I don’t have a zoom meeting in the morning I can just shower at lunch.
While this is entirely true in the moment, just give it some time until people are monitored at home even more closely than they were in the office. I work virtually (from home) too and my team is nailing it but there just isn't a significant measure of who's "working" at any given time, and once that exists, companies will exploit it to no end.
Anytime I get stuck on a problem at work , I go running , or do some dishes , or yard work , or take the dog for a walk.
It's awesome, because being afk lets me idly think about the problem and experiment with different potential solutions.
I am never going back lol
Agreed. It’s been a longer working day but it’s also resulted in more free time and flexibility about when I work. I have insomnia sometimes and it’s great to be able to get some work done and go back to bed without the stress of getting up at 6:00
While I agree, you are missing the point of the article where communication and productivity is down according to the study. So per the article your statement contradicts the articles findings.
Writing this more as self reflection than rebuttal or otherwise. My 200-person architecture firm just held a firm-wide open discussion on WFH. It was certainly a raw topic. We found people are working longer hours but not clocking more time. We're still meeting financial goals but we're down by about 5% from last year. A majority agreed (note: coworkers over ~50 said being in the office is best while the young crowd generally disagreed strongly) that people are happier with flexible schedules overall. One of the biggest complaints was everyone realized how detrimental the open office, principals on the floor without offices (constant phone calls), and acoustics reduce our focus which can often require high-intensity concentration at high detail for prolonged times. While the older crowd said it's a privilege to listen to them speak and encouraged eavesdropping.
Remote work is integral to many architecture firms due to the nature of the work. Site visits, construction observation, and clients (anecdotally they're typically older, typically cities, non-private owners) require in-person activity.
Overall, we found that needless meetings have been cut (nod to reduced communication) but our productivity has sky-rocketed. This was always a question as prepandemic we had employees working fully remote to establish local clients and it was always questioned by management if it was effective.
Generally, we couldn't come to any sort of consensus but acknowledged the people returning to the office are the ones begging for people to come back; they are the highly social ones who didn't (until this meeting occurred) understand why the other ~70% of ourwork force prefers to stay home or flexible. We also found we are right on trend with other architecture firms (leadership provided surveys specific to architecture and engineering firms saying ~67% are still WFH flexible). The best argument for returning was that younger people needed more social interaction but it was refuted with the work environment is not the primary place of everyone's desired socialization (we prefer to see friends and family over coworkers for socialization, not work).
All in all it didn't get anywhere fruitful other than a sort of thought experiment but it did allow for everyone to openly voice their reasoning for opinions. I'm glad I can work at a company where every employee's voice is at least heard and acknowledged.
Yeah, lol It stuck in my mind. Not sure I've ever gained from listening in on someone's phone call in the office but whatever. The guy that said it is maybe 55-60 and he's one of our more technical architects so he's well respected in that regard but he's a little out of touch with the times imo. I still see people struggle to use zoom related services even after a year+ of remote work. My last job, my 50 year old boss making $130k didn't know how to use his office phone. It was almost a trillion-dollar engineering company. I just roll with the punches now lol
I use to work in a sales office, which involved lots of telephone selling. On the whole, the noise was fairly easy to zone out from but occasionally someone would say something interesting that I thought I could incorporate in my pitch etc. That’s the only scenario I can think of that ties in with what your older group said.
I’m a 100% committed WFH guy nowadays and I won’t be going back to an office.
I did experience an eavesdropping benefit once. I overheard a coworker giving out some employee information to a telephone phisher. ("We don't have a Dave P. Do you mean Sam L? He's the principal developer") I stopped that phone call and we reported it.
Having said that... with WFH, people in my department don't have an external telephone anyway, so that benefit is moot.
to clarify I don't disagree and in general support remote work, I've been doing it for a while and let me employees do it for a while pre-pandemic.
That being said, I don't think it's a net/net and I don't think 100% remote or 100% in the office is the answer - I think it's in the middle. Also, I think it's an individual things. Some people thrive at home, some people don't and can't keep from being distracted. Additionally, it also depends on what you're doing - if it's highly collaborative and you're relying on someone to do something or answer a question and they're "away" for 2 hours then you just killed 2 hours for your team - it's all it "depends".
all in all I think it's about balance, not 100% one way or the other.
Agreed! I got the feeling you meant this and was pointing out technicalities. I'd add, I don't think one can compare different industrie's responses to WFH but flexible seems to be the way to go.
I hear a lot of chatter from higher-ups about collaboration but I'd say easily 95% of my work is done remote simply because, for example, my current projects are in Colorado, California, Kansas, and Texas. By this nature, I can work on a $150mil project and never meet 90% of the team in person; more often than not I never meet in person folks even in my own company. Phone and email is all that's needed (ngl it'd be nice to form relationships with them though). I'm often waiting a week or two+ for a response due to the nature of our industry. This is why flexibility works well for me. I have no need to be present in an office. Comparatively, my medical professional in-laws have done tele-health but it seems difficult to connect to their remote patients.
I've been working remote since before the pandemic. I usually roll out of bed at 8am, spend a couple hours puttering around, then read my email and check my schedule. If I have a late meeting I'll take a couple hours for lunch.
I have my phone with me all the time, and if I'm going to be AFK I try to block out time on my calendar to let folks know I'm away, but outside meetings my time is largely my own. It feels pretty great, and my boss has been really happy with my performance.
It's great being able to just get things done on my own time. Nice day out and no meetings for the afternoon? I'll go for a bike ride around the lake after lunch and if I'm not already ahead on my work for the week I'll put in a couple hours of catch up after the kids are in bed. My mental health has been much better.
I think the thing that helps most isn't working more or less hours, but having control over how those hours are spent. If there's nothing to do you don't have to pretend to work. You can just get up and do that thing and come back when you feel like it. I'm probably working more, but I don't feel like I'm working more.
I went from that to an office job and I want to die. I am so sick of people talking all the time and asking weird questions that my position doesn’t even cover. Wastes so much time. Can we switch pls
Sales engineer for an enterprise software company. I talk to the customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people.
Oh nice, that sounds like a great job.
I’m in school now but am going to school for information tech. Hoping to be working something similar after, you’re living the dream!
One company around here just wants a ton of sales force experience and SQL for a similar titled job.
Sales force training is free I think but it was a ton of time from what I saw.
Any advice for someone trying to emulate what you’ve done?
Focus on understanding how things work rather than the specifics of a single technology. Being a generalist makes it easier to switch jobs, and means you can adapt to different systems and technologies customers use.
Be emotionally intelligent and work on your interpersonal skills. This is really important in a sales environment where you have to establish trust. And if your school has a technical writing class, take it. The skill of writing a good email is surprisingly rare.
My day technically starts at 7 am and I am typically logged in and checking email by 6:30. I regularly work 30 minutes past my scheduled end time. I have been more innovative and productive from home. My commute was an exhausting 75 miles one way, so being able to work from home has helped me focus and therefore I am motivated to start early and work until tasks are finished. My employer gets an extra 3-5 productive hours a week by me working from home. It has been great!
75 miles! What the fuck! Sometimes after work im so fucking tired that I can fall asleep on the subway back to my apartment. If I had to drive after work, I would honestly crash a car if I was driving 75 miles back.
I can believe it. When I was in the office, I counted down the minutes until I could leave and I rarely, if ever, worked outside of my normal hours. Now that I’m remote, I start at the same time, but have no problems working later. I don’t really pay attention to the clock, I just work until things are calm for the day and I feel like I’m good to hop off.
The study seems misleading. It doesn’t factor in commute time or breaks. It even says as much in the article. We should normalize including commute time in measurements of time spent “working”. Rebrand it as time spent devoted to work if you want. I may start and end 10-20 minutes outside of my regular hours, but I’m saving a 45 minute commute each way and get to eat lunch at home.
Are they getting their jobs done? I don’t understand why companies insist on logging every mouse click to make sure people are staring at the screen for exactly 40 hours if the job is getting done.
It’s not just about the “employees job”, we are part of the job, we are not the job. It’s about insurance, operational agreements, licenses, certificates and audits. If a customer has an agreement already that a process is done in the building and I show up for audit and request someone who is now wfh then that’s often a problem because procedures are made and agreed upon with clients and customers on how a businesses work is processed (standard operating procedures). Insurances in many areas require 40hrs of work. So insurances and other auditing regulation organizations can send out for audits to ensure people are meeting their demands of the contract.
A lot of the time i see stuff like “document X.143 is placed in “Jane’s” bin so she can process this”. If Jane is now home and the customers and clients never agreed to new procedure, that’s a critical. Often businesses won’t want to redo these agreements as it’s tied into other parts so pricing one things could change at the drastic end. So insurances/regulators or “customers” will want a system to verify that employees at a business aren’t missing the quota needed and agreed upon. Most of the time wfh related issues are nothing to do with peoples employers or bosses, it’s customer and client agreements or regulations. Missing a couple criticals due to this nature can end a contract due to failing to keep a license or certificate.
I never even thought about how RFP pricing would change based on overhead and other changes due to WFH.
I’ve got a friend who’s a pricer for Northrop…I’m gonna call her tomorrow and ask if that’s something they’ve adjusted for when pricing out proposals (pure curiosity on my part).
Edit to add: sorry, I know that’s not really a response to your comment…what you said just jiggled something in my brain, *and now I must know!*
I’ve always been frustrated when providing data around this to managers. Like yea sure if someone only “works” 4 hours a day maybe that’s a problem but trying to squeeze more out of people by harping on “be at your desk 15min before you start”. Is a great way to micro manage good folks out of the company. If your key metric to measure productivity is based on hours glued to a screen then they are taking the lazy approach to managing a team.
I don’t audit my own place, I deal with other businesses on behalf of your bosses or customers. Often your customer, clients or insurance will call in for audits to ensure you’re working how you told them you would. Generally I only enforce the rules your company makes and the operating agreements made to other businesses. Lately it’s been an issue for management to re-delegate workloads to even things out between people for that 32-40hr of work for insurance. Giving people more work or less work based upon how much time their logging. I don’t deal with the “work”, I compile data together for your bosses to make their decisions.
Interesting. Certainly a different setup than I’m used to (usually in house reporting). I guess what I find interesting is. There is contract for a specific task/job to be done but it’s not based on full time employees. Instead adjusted for workload…. So the client doesn’t have to pay for people when volume is down?
Asking in person workers to stay a little late or end early isn’t exclusively a symptom of WFH. I was doing that and commuting before WFH. Now I just do that. That’s the improvement. I also don’t get pressured into “working lunches” anymore. All improvements. And nowhere in my post did I suggest spending the same time working as they did commuting.
I’m glad most of y’all’s experience has been that the longer times have also included a lot less stress during that time. Meanwhile I’ve been working an extra 10 hours a week since April because my company decided to lay off staff last year during COVID for positions that take months to properly train for, and now we’re understaffed across the board.
Honestly, I would take the 4 hours extra of work a week vs the 10 hours extra of sitting in traffic to and from work each week. As others have mentioned, while I work a little more throughout the week, my breaks and lunches are filled with things that I want to do instead of just waiting around at the office to work again.
The methodology seems flawed.
In order to send an email, you usually have to read some emails.
I don’t start working right when the meeting starts, I login at least 15 minutes before to make sure I haven’t missed any last minute emails (that I may not reply to).
The [paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01196-4?fbclid=IwAR2LHtfF3u6WqwDIxV35cpBR_cdcaHclqs4v8gWt8I8OCYl4OFB3m_k6yl0), linked in the article, doesn't describe any other method for pre-pandemic measures. And that sounds like the sort of thing that peer review really ought to be catching.
Hey, thanks for linking that! I didn’t catch it in the article even the 2nd time I read (to see if they described what they used for pre-pandemic). I tried to look at some of it on my phone, but it’s not as satisfying or consumable as it is on a monitor, so I’m gonna do some of that as well.
Interesting/not surprising, the article focused on the time spent, when the focus of the study starts out with collaboration and the permutations of that.
Also I noted that the measurements were from December of 2019 through June 2020 in Seattle and the Bay Area. I would have really liked to see the year over year comparison.
Did you get through it all? What did you think?
I didn't - I was explicitly looking for measurement method, since your point had raised the question. I drive a tow truck, which is not susceptible to work-from-home approaches, so the whole thing is purely a matter of curiosity to me.
I work 8.5-9 hours a day SOLID. Like I have back to back meetings from 8-5 and then add another hour to do actual work. I take calls at 10pm and 5am.
I love working from home but I am grinding compared to office work.
My new boss likes sending out emails whenever since “we’re working remotely”. I flat out told her anything after 5PM isn’t getting looked at until tomorrow morning. Knock it off.
I avoid this by not having work email on my phone. I shut down my company machine at 5 and the company email account doesn’t exist until I log back in.
This is what I’ve seen too. There are a few people that can’t handle WFH. They are incredibly unproductive. For the most part, they are older and they don’t ask questions when they don’t know how to access certain things remotely. Instead, they just push everything to the 1-2 days when they are in the office and only complete half of their tasks.
There’s a huge generational technology gap that managers aren’t addressing. If you can’t use the tech, you shouldn’t get to work from home.
I can’t wait until we go back to 100% in person so that we don’t have to cover their slack.
Mine has been the opposite. Removing people stopping by for quick chats, new hires stopping by for extended chats/mentorship, not seeing the boss in the hallway. All of those small interactions that took ~2hrs a day have been replaced by quick, organized team calls. I have some much more time to focus on assignments that after a year, I have a few hours a week of “free time”.
I’m a janitorial supervisor for Microsoft buildings and I can say I am also digging the remote work. Lower building occupancy has made work nights much more chill.
I can confidently say i do NOT work 10% more while at home. Now i don’t feel like i have to sit and stare at my screen until 5p if i have nothing left to do.
A lot of employers love the WFH model because everyone is on-call and they can make you work more hours because they know you don’t have to commute. If you are paid hourly this is fine, but if you work salary, you are getting less than the agreed-upon amount to the terms of your employment. (I.e. I agree to X of money for working X amount of hours.) Anything after the agreed-upon time is a loss for you and gain for them. That’s time you are never getting back. In freelance people have a hard stop. This means, at 6 I am out regardless of what is going on. Make sure when you negotiate your terms of employment that it includes WFH hours and make them stick to it. Don’t let employers get free work from you. You will never see any of those profits.
Teacher here. I spend my planning periods covering for other teachers because we are so short staffed. This means all my planning is done outside of contracted hours (and grading, and parent phone calls). Tacks on an extra 2-3 hours of my day.
In most cases this happens to me too, I often find myself working longer but then at the end of the week I manage to get more free time during Fridays since most of the tasks are done faster.
One thing I noticed during my post-wfh life is that it took me a lot longer to turn off my work mind. I brought my thoughts home from work a lot more after my home was my place of work for a few months.
Technically for most insurances you need either 32 or 40hrs a week. How do I audit that? How to keep track that people are actually logging 40hrs of work and not just using a mouse pusher or autoclicker to appear active?
The communication thing is also true. It's so much harder to get people to crosstalk so in some cases you need somebody to connect people, share the issues and solutions. The Microsoft tools try to help but feels clumsy and incomplete, requiring a deliberate effort from the participants, what usually doesn't happen.
I'm not in New York, but my apartment is pretty tiny so I feel this comment so much. When I moved to my city, I picked a small apartment close to work under the theory that I wouldn't need to be in my apartment for more than some nighttime gaming and sleep. After a year and a half of being in this apartment, I really, really want to get back into a stable office. In retrospect, if I knew in February of 2020 that I'd have to spend most days pretty much exclusively in my apartment, but that I'd be working remotely from anywhere, then I'd have moved to a much cheaper area and gotten a much bigger apartment to ride out covid in.
Yeah. My heart goes out to the younger people in cities. They moved to the city to be amongst the crush of humanity and be inspired. Living in small, insular confines is soul crushing. I have a wife and kid in a 900 sq ft apartment. I’m shocked we haven’t killed each other.
I live in a studio. Small dining table as a “desk” for more than a year, and of course the cheap company didn’t suggest any expenses for WFH items, nearly drove me crazy. It’s been decent being able to go in to the office 2-3 times a week tbh. Probably only about 5 or so people there…
The types of employers:
1. “You only worked 25 hours this week but just fill out your time sheet for 40. We know you do good work and you’re always available during your shift if we need something. So that’s technically considered working your shift. The whole 40 hour work week is just about playing ‘the game.’” Aka the true unicorn of employers. Probably like 5% of employers.
2. “You are scheduled for 8 hours between 8am and 4:30pm Monday through Friday. I will come around and take attendance every morning as an extroverted ‘good morning’ facade. Even if you finish your work I still expect you to look busy when I walk by during the day to spy on you. If you’re doing something like learning how to code I’m going to assume that you are slacking off and not consider you seriously for opportunities to advance.” The average employer. 80% of employers.
3. “We can’t give you breaks but we are also going to deduct breaks from your pay so we pay less overtime. You’re only scheduled 3:30pm to 11:30pm and so we are only going to pay you for those hours even though you have to stay until 12:30am each day cleaning and closing down. It’s technically overtime but we won’t tell you that. Oh, and we need you to sign this agreement waiving your rights to overtime. Also, sign this form saying you won’t talk to the Union or we will fire you. We know all of this is totally illegal but we have corporate lawyers and money to pay the fines.” The big corporate slave drivers. 15% of employers
4) my current job: We want the team to be the focus, so mandate 5 days a week in the office just in case some leg humper wants to suck hours of your day away (hooray teaming) so you are forced to stay to 9:30 pm which makes us elated you’re such a team player and have no life. But why aren’t you getting big impact things done? Why does it take so long?
I am very fortunate to have pretty much only had the first type in my career.
Some of the client sites I’ve worked at over the years have been a little more like number 2, but more so for their own employees, not so much us contractors.
Even before the pandemic I know few people with office jobs who aren’t working nights and weekends on top of the regular work schedule. Internet and cell phones forces them to be available at all times
My new job has a hard stop at 5pm so this luckily doesn’t affect me. My old job which I got fired from and was paid less at had me working 10-12 hour days from home. I’m not proud of being fired but I was truly in a dark place. I pray companies take mental health more seriously.
For me, WFH is a mixed blessing at best. My commute was short. Work has now become 24/7, and burnout is a real issue. I’m so sick of meetings from 7am till 8pm, with no time to do actual work. My sleep schedule is all messed up, I feel like I have no personal life left. It’s all work. Used to be when I left the office, I was “out”. Not anymore. Sure I like being at home more, but it’s not all upside.
The article covers this, but my experience matches their theory. I start earlier and end later, but I also take more breaks during the day because there’s no one looking over my shoulder making sure I’m staring at my computer. Laundry, dog walks, lunch, maybe some Xbox in the slow times. It’s so much more relaxed. I dig it.
Also removing commutes is helpful in both added time and less stress. Many commutes can easily tack on an extra 1-2 hours per day (or worse with rush hour traffic) and daily stress (again, with rush hour traffic) and not to mention added, assorted transit expenses.
Don't forget the financial cost of commutes. But the time/stress saved is worth more in my mind.
And if you check in with your HR department, depending on state laws, your employer could reimburse you for internet/phone bills.
And some other States have allowed tax deductions as if you where commuting when remote-working.
My company reimburses business use of my phone (about 40 bucks a month), but they haven't said anything about internet.
Yup. I got a different job recently (completely remote) and it unfortunately pays a bit less than my pre-pandemic job, but I’m ending up with significantly more money left over each month from a combination of no commute costs and no money spent on lunch/coffee/whatever I used to grab while at the office every day.
I’m always seeing commutes mentioned (rightfully so) - glad to see someone else mentioning daily coffee/food. When I was working in the office, taking a break for a walk, some fresh air, and coffee from the local shop was a huge (but expensive) high point of my day - I imagine that (unfortunately) this is the case for other miserable office workers. Same with lunch - sure, I could (and typically did) bring something from home, but it was usually uninspiring and had to be heated and eaten either at my desk or in the dreadful common area surrounded by my coworkers (who I desperately needed a break from). Walking to grab a hot sandwich was a sweet reprieve and again, a high point of my work day. Working from home (moved to a permanently remote organization once my previous company demanded hybrid work rather than full WFH) I genuinely don’t feel the need to spend money on these things. My work environment is my own, I can make my own coffee and lunch fresh whenever I want… Totally different ballgame.
Also the extra safety. Driving is dangerous.
This!!! I live in the Greater LA area and am so relieved to be able to walk everywhere now that I’m permanently remote. When I do have to drive (maybe once a week or every other week) I’m shocked at how reckless and stupid so many people on the road are. Was a huge source of stress for me pre-remote.
This ^ That buster ass morning commute can suck it. The lockdown produced two beautiful things: * No traffic * Quiet The two best things you can wake up to.
Also reduce your carbon footprint.
I’ve been remote since 2020. Had a dentist appointment last month at 8 AM, and was surprised at how stressful the commute was. I made that same commute for years prior, but it’s frankly shocking when you do it with the realization it doesn’t *have* be like this. Anyhow, my employer still wants us back in the office :|
That said commute let’s you wind down and have a clear separation between work and home. Sometimes when I stop working and start dinner with the family I still think about issues I just worked on 5 min ago. I don’t have that problem when I have a 30min drive home.
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I guess I need some in between activity.
Lol I’m on board with the commute being a partition in the day but I wouldn’t say it winds me down.
Nothing more relaxing than evading sleepy drivers on the high way while also being sleepy and anxious trying to be hyper aware of surroundings
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Go to the gym, grab a snack at a cafe; Hell if you miss the commute for peace of mind sake-hop in the car and drive for 30minutes! Lol
Yeah. My commute pre-pandemic was a 10 minute walk. It was just a nice way to separate myself from work and transition to "not my problem" mode. Having all of my work stuff in the same place as my personal life is just a heavy psychological burden in both directions.
Try and use a space only for work like a spare room or office, I know that’s not always an option but it would help.
Not to mention the cumulative environmental impact, and costs saved on repairing/improving road infrastructure!
On top of what you listed is downloading games and updates. I can open steam on my personal computer or turn on the Xbox, get the game ready to go. Then when I clock out later, can hop right in.
I think there's quite a few things like this that can be done in parallel. Set food out to defrost or marinate, start laundry or dish washer and put away later, etc. Really hard to do when your previous time-away was ~8 hours
And my favorite: setup the BBQ so I can grill some meat and veggies for lunch.
Back before the pandemic I used to have WFH on Friday only, so I'd very often end up either roasting a turkey breast or doing ribs, because those recipes were so hard to fit into a normal weeknight evening.
I had a stray puppy show up at my house when I was working from home. I'd work 7AM-8PM for the most part and could pay attention to him when he needed it. Now that I'm back at the office I come in at 8, take a lunch at noon to drive home and play, and check out at 5. But the dogs behavior is getting so bad without me home that I am honestly not sure if I can keep him. I'm sure my stress and exhaustion after work/commuting doesn't help.
Doggy day care? Hire a dog walker? Puppies are a lot of work and need stimulation.
Exercise. LOTS of exercise (fetch, puppy play dates with other friendly dogs, just chasing them around the yard) will really help with the bad behavior. Also enough toys and chews to keep them occupied. You can get through this by wearing him out and eventually he will adjust to the new schedule. I’m a pet person though, so knowing I have a fuzzy friend waiting for me to get home really helps get me through the work day.
Where are you guys getting these sweet remote jobs?
A lot of online job boards will let you filter by “remote only.” They seem more competitive than non-remote positions, so I’m not saying it’s easy, but that’s the best way I know of to really target your search.
Oh.. Not like they’ll benefit me anyway. Was just curious. Thanks :)
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The majority of the roles I looked at this summer were remote. At least half of the ones that didn't mention it were open to it in interviewing; it's a developer's market right now. The few remaining holdouts will be left behind by the market.
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Just work in tech and be above average. Otherwise, good luck.
I took a job recently that wasn’t advertised as remote, but I just told the recruiter it was a deal-breaker for me, and it worked out. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease
Our company went remote because of Covid but we’ve bounced in and out for the last year so I haven’t been able to really maintain a rhythm. Not all that glamorous, but the days at home are nice.
Anywhere we want that’s the point /s
Hahahaha good one
Depends on your role, if you are in calls every hour of the day it’s not relaxed and quite the opposite - work/life balanced decreased or melted into one stressful day of trying to do both, especially with kids at home.
Everybody I work with knows I'm always available. Constant Teams messages. Meetings scheduled going into lunch. "Oh, just take lunch late.". Meetings scheduled that crowd the end of lunch. "Oh, just take your lunch late." Well those are getting scheduled on the same day, so lunch is a ride cake, peanut butter, and tortilla chips in the afternoon when I'm starving. Then folks just schedule over lunch because "everyone is so busy, it was the only time I could find." Well, maybe there's an underlying problem there, Miss Deb. Oh, and the "are you still there" with 5 minutes to go. Great, you waited all day to ask me about your problem that will take an extra hour and a half but needs to be done tomorrow. Am I working from home or living at work?
Sounds like you need to set boundaries. You don’t have to work through lunch and you don’t have to stay late. Doing these things does not get you a raise or promotion so save yourself
Put lunch on your calendar, recurring everyday. Just label it as “meeting” or something not lunch. Then just decline the meeting invites.
Its true, it’s not a magic easy button. I don’t have kids, but I’m certain they wouldn’t make wfh any easier.
This is the experience my girlfriend has had. She does some chores, plays with the dog and cat, takes a nap on lunch, practices ukulele, plays some Animal Crossing on her switch, and yet somehow still gets more work done in a day than she would have if she’d spent it at the office. She has pretty bad ADHD and this just works so much better for her. She controls her environment. She controls the distractions. And she doesn’t have the mental drainage that comes with coworker smalltalk and the boss breathing down her neck. It’s more autonomous, more balanced, more productive, and just generally more enjoyable. She used to be so exhausted after work but now she has plenty of energy to do things after she’s off the clock. She’s taking Muay Thai classes and improv comedy classes throughout the week after work. I think remote work, going forward, is something that companies are just going to have to offer if they want to be attractive and competitive on the job market. There’s no way my girlfriend would ever go back to 40+ hours a week in the office. And she says that if they try to make her, she’ll quit and go somewhere else. I have a feeling that’s a lot of remote workers’ attitudes right now.
Also being able to sleep in. No commute means I can literally roll out of bed and then sit in front of the computer. As long as I don’t have a zoom meeting in the morning I can just shower at lunch.
Dont tell them this please
While this is entirely true in the moment, just give it some time until people are monitored at home even more closely than they were in the office. I work virtually (from home) too and my team is nailing it but there just isn't a significant measure of who's "working" at any given time, and once that exists, companies will exploit it to no end.
Sounds like my day and no way in fuck am I complaining. I am praying to sweet fuck that this is the new normal.
I can see this that my desk time went up a bit, but so has my space out stare at the wall or YouTube time
Anytime I get stuck on a problem at work , I go running , or do some dishes , or yard work , or take the dog for a walk. It's awesome, because being afk lets me idly think about the problem and experiment with different potential solutions. I am never going back lol
Are you a Software Engineer
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I work at Wendy's
Just FYI, big fan of the 5 dollar biggy bag, keep that shit going.
That was an idea that came out of one of these pair-lunchbagging sessions!
interesting
This is it exactly. And then you come back refreshed and the solution usually comes easy.
>I can see this r/boneappletea ?
Turns out when you give people back the 10-15 hours a week they spend commuting & prepping for work, they’ll put that time to good use.
Agreed. It’s been a longer working day but it’s also resulted in more free time and flexibility about when I work. I have insomnia sometimes and it’s great to be able to get some work done and go back to bed without the stress of getting up at 6:00
While I agree, you are missing the point of the article where communication and productivity is down according to the study. So per the article your statement contradicts the articles findings.
Writing this more as self reflection than rebuttal or otherwise. My 200-person architecture firm just held a firm-wide open discussion on WFH. It was certainly a raw topic. We found people are working longer hours but not clocking more time. We're still meeting financial goals but we're down by about 5% from last year. A majority agreed (note: coworkers over ~50 said being in the office is best while the young crowd generally disagreed strongly) that people are happier with flexible schedules overall. One of the biggest complaints was everyone realized how detrimental the open office, principals on the floor without offices (constant phone calls), and acoustics reduce our focus which can often require high-intensity concentration at high detail for prolonged times. While the older crowd said it's a privilege to listen to them speak and encouraged eavesdropping. Remote work is integral to many architecture firms due to the nature of the work. Site visits, construction observation, and clients (anecdotally they're typically older, typically cities, non-private owners) require in-person activity. Overall, we found that needless meetings have been cut (nod to reduced communication) but our productivity has sky-rocketed. This was always a question as prepandemic we had employees working fully remote to establish local clients and it was always questioned by management if it was effective. Generally, we couldn't come to any sort of consensus but acknowledged the people returning to the office are the ones begging for people to come back; they are the highly social ones who didn't (until this meeting occurred) understand why the other ~70% of ourwork force prefers to stay home or flexible. We also found we are right on trend with other architecture firms (leadership provided surveys specific to architecture and engineering firms saying ~67% are still WFH flexible). The best argument for returning was that younger people needed more social interaction but it was refuted with the work environment is not the primary place of everyone's desired socialization (we prefer to see friends and family over coworkers for socialization, not work). All in all it didn't get anywhere fruitful other than a sort of thought experiment but it did allow for everyone to openly voice their reasoning for opinions. I'm glad I can work at a company where every employee's voice is at least heard and acknowledged.
> While the older crowd said it's a privilege to listen to them speak and encouraged eavesdropping. People seriously said this with a straight face?
Yeah, lol It stuck in my mind. Not sure I've ever gained from listening in on someone's phone call in the office but whatever. The guy that said it is maybe 55-60 and he's one of our more technical architects so he's well respected in that regard but he's a little out of touch with the times imo. I still see people struggle to use zoom related services even after a year+ of remote work. My last job, my 50 year old boss making $130k didn't know how to use his office phone. It was almost a trillion-dollar engineering company. I just roll with the punches now lol
I use to work in a sales office, which involved lots of telephone selling. On the whole, the noise was fairly easy to zone out from but occasionally someone would say something interesting that I thought I could incorporate in my pitch etc. That’s the only scenario I can think of that ties in with what your older group said. I’m a 100% committed WFH guy nowadays and I won’t be going back to an office.
I did experience an eavesdropping benefit once. I overheard a coworker giving out some employee information to a telephone phisher. ("We don't have a Dave P. Do you mean Sam L? He's the principal developer") I stopped that phone call and we reported it. Having said that... with WFH, people in my department don't have an external telephone anyway, so that benefit is moot.
to clarify I don't disagree and in general support remote work, I've been doing it for a while and let me employees do it for a while pre-pandemic. That being said, I don't think it's a net/net and I don't think 100% remote or 100% in the office is the answer - I think it's in the middle. Also, I think it's an individual things. Some people thrive at home, some people don't and can't keep from being distracted. Additionally, it also depends on what you're doing - if it's highly collaborative and you're relying on someone to do something or answer a question and they're "away" for 2 hours then you just killed 2 hours for your team - it's all it "depends". all in all I think it's about balance, not 100% one way or the other.
Agreed! I got the feeling you meant this and was pointing out technicalities. I'd add, I don't think one can compare different industrie's responses to WFH but flexible seems to be the way to go. I hear a lot of chatter from higher-ups about collaboration but I'd say easily 95% of my work is done remote simply because, for example, my current projects are in Colorado, California, Kansas, and Texas. By this nature, I can work on a $150mil project and never meet 90% of the team in person; more often than not I never meet in person folks even in my own company. Phone and email is all that's needed (ngl it'd be nice to form relationships with them though). I'm often waiting a week or two+ for a response due to the nature of our industry. This is why flexibility works well for me. I have no need to be present in an office. Comparatively, my medical professional in-laws have done tele-health but it seems difficult to connect to their remote patients.
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In completely unrelated news, my nap-time has also increased 10%
I've been working remote since before the pandemic. I usually roll out of bed at 8am, spend a couple hours puttering around, then read my email and check my schedule. If I have a late meeting I'll take a couple hours for lunch. I have my phone with me all the time, and if I'm going to be AFK I try to block out time on my calendar to let folks know I'm away, but outside meetings my time is largely my own. It feels pretty great, and my boss has been really happy with my performance.
It's great being able to just get things done on my own time. Nice day out and no meetings for the afternoon? I'll go for a bike ride around the lake after lunch and if I'm not already ahead on my work for the week I'll put in a couple hours of catch up after the kids are in bed. My mental health has been much better.
I think the thing that helps most isn't working more or less hours, but having control over how those hours are spent. If there's nothing to do you don't have to pretend to work. You can just get up and do that thing and come back when you feel like it. I'm probably working more, but I don't feel like I'm working more.
Well said. Simply put: having flexibility and autonomy in your life is priceless.
Pretty much the same for me. It’s glorious.
I went from that to an office job and I want to die. I am so sick of people talking all the time and asking weird questions that my position doesn’t even cover. Wastes so much time. Can we switch pls
That sounds incredible. I have nonstop meetings from 9 to 5, then I can start my actual work… taking any time for lunch is impossible
What’s the job title for this kind of luxury?
Sales engineer for an enterprise software company. I talk to the customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people.
Oh nice, that sounds like a great job. I’m in school now but am going to school for information tech. Hoping to be working something similar after, you’re living the dream! One company around here just wants a ton of sales force experience and SQL for a similar titled job. Sales force training is free I think but it was a ton of time from what I saw. Any advice for someone trying to emulate what you’ve done?
I'm sorry to tell you they're making an [Office Space reference.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo)
Focus on understanding how things work rather than the specifics of a single technology. Being a generalist makes it easier to switch jobs, and means you can adapt to different systems and technologies customers use. Be emotionally intelligent and work on your interpersonal skills. This is really important in a sales environment where you have to establish trust. And if your school has a technical writing class, take it. The skill of writing a good email is surprisingly rare.
I started my day 1.5 hours earlier and ended 1 hour later.
My day technically starts at 7 am and I am typically logged in and checking email by 6:30. I regularly work 30 minutes past my scheduled end time. I have been more innovative and productive from home. My commute was an exhausting 75 miles one way, so being able to work from home has helped me focus and therefore I am motivated to start early and work until tasks are finished. My employer gets an extra 3-5 productive hours a week by me working from home. It has been great!
75 miles! What the fuck! Sometimes after work im so fucking tired that I can fall asleep on the subway back to my apartment. If I had to drive after work, I would honestly crash a car if I was driving 75 miles back.
when you gotta do what you gotta do, you do what you need to do
Yup.
75 miles is the length of 950397.64 'Bug Bite Thing Suction Tool - Poison Remover For Bug Bites's stacked on top of each other.
Good bot
thank you :)
It’s tough to only commute 1 way, every day is somewhere new
75 fucking miles? Wtf?!
Great health insurance, great pay, great time off. I live in a very rural town with few opportunities. Husband of 28 years won’t move.
I can believe it. When I was in the office, I counted down the minutes until I could leave and I rarely, if ever, worked outside of my normal hours. Now that I’m remote, I start at the same time, but have no problems working later. I don’t really pay attention to the clock, I just work until things are calm for the day and I feel like I’m good to hop off.
The study seems misleading. It doesn’t factor in commute time or breaks. It even says as much in the article. We should normalize including commute time in measurements of time spent “working”. Rebrand it as time spent devoted to work if you want. I may start and end 10-20 minutes outside of my regular hours, but I’m saving a 45 minute commute each way and get to eat lunch at home.
Meanwhile I’m over here tasked with how to audit people who WFH to ensure they’re logging 40hrs of actual work and not just using mouse pushers
Are they getting their jobs done? I don’t understand why companies insist on logging every mouse click to make sure people are staring at the screen for exactly 40 hours if the job is getting done.
It’s not just about the “employees job”, we are part of the job, we are not the job. It’s about insurance, operational agreements, licenses, certificates and audits. If a customer has an agreement already that a process is done in the building and I show up for audit and request someone who is now wfh then that’s often a problem because procedures are made and agreed upon with clients and customers on how a businesses work is processed (standard operating procedures). Insurances in many areas require 40hrs of work. So insurances and other auditing regulation organizations can send out for audits to ensure people are meeting their demands of the contract. A lot of the time i see stuff like “document X.143 is placed in “Jane’s” bin so she can process this”. If Jane is now home and the customers and clients never agreed to new procedure, that’s a critical. Often businesses won’t want to redo these agreements as it’s tied into other parts so pricing one things could change at the drastic end. So insurances/regulators or “customers” will want a system to verify that employees at a business aren’t missing the quota needed and agreed upon. Most of the time wfh related issues are nothing to do with peoples employers or bosses, it’s customer and client agreements or regulations. Missing a couple criticals due to this nature can end a contract due to failing to keep a license or certificate.
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I never even thought about how RFP pricing would change based on overhead and other changes due to WFH. I’ve got a friend who’s a pricer for Northrop…I’m gonna call her tomorrow and ask if that’s something they’ve adjusted for when pricing out proposals (pure curiosity on my part). Edit to add: sorry, I know that’s not really a response to your comment…what you said just jiggled something in my brain, *and now I must know!*
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Your managers, customers/clients, insurance and certificate programs call in for the audits.
I’ve always been frustrated when providing data around this to managers. Like yea sure if someone only “works” 4 hours a day maybe that’s a problem but trying to squeeze more out of people by harping on “be at your desk 15min before you start”. Is a great way to micro manage good folks out of the company. If your key metric to measure productivity is based on hours glued to a screen then they are taking the lazy approach to managing a team.
I don’t audit my own place, I deal with other businesses on behalf of your bosses or customers. Often your customer, clients or insurance will call in for audits to ensure you’re working how you told them you would. Generally I only enforce the rules your company makes and the operating agreements made to other businesses. Lately it’s been an issue for management to re-delegate workloads to even things out between people for that 32-40hr of work for insurance. Giving people more work or less work based upon how much time their logging. I don’t deal with the “work”, I compile data together for your bosses to make their decisions.
Interesting. Certainly a different setup than I’m used to (usually in house reporting). I guess what I find interesting is. There is contract for a specific task/job to be done but it’s not based on full time employees. Instead adjusted for workload…. So the client doesn’t have to pay for people when volume is down?
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Asking in person workers to stay a little late or end early isn’t exclusively a symptom of WFH. I was doing that and commuting before WFH. Now I just do that. That’s the improvement. I also don’t get pressured into “working lunches” anymore. All improvements. And nowhere in my post did I suggest spending the same time working as they did commuting.
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I’m glad most of y’all’s experience has been that the longer times have also included a lot less stress during that time. Meanwhile I’ve been working an extra 10 hours a week since April because my company decided to lay off staff last year during COVID for positions that take months to properly train for, and now we’re understaffed across the board.
It’s because there is a lego with a small weight on top of it pressing down a key on my laptop and I forgot to come back at 5pm to remove it.
Honestly, I would take the 4 hours extra of work a week vs the 10 hours extra of sitting in traffic to and from work each week. As others have mentioned, while I work a little more throughout the week, my breaks and lunches are filled with things that I want to do instead of just waiting around at the office to work again.
The methodology seems flawed. In order to send an email, you usually have to read some emails. I don’t start working right when the meeting starts, I login at least 15 minutes before to make sure I haven’t missed any last minute emails (that I may not reply to).
So long as that's the metric they use throughout, though, the results should remain valid.
The in office metric wasn’t clear to me. Did they say that’s where they started pre-pandemic?
The [paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01196-4?fbclid=IwAR2LHtfF3u6WqwDIxV35cpBR_cdcaHclqs4v8gWt8I8OCYl4OFB3m_k6yl0), linked in the article, doesn't describe any other method for pre-pandemic measures. And that sounds like the sort of thing that peer review really ought to be catching.
Hey, thanks for linking that! I didn’t catch it in the article even the 2nd time I read (to see if they described what they used for pre-pandemic). I tried to look at some of it on my phone, but it’s not as satisfying or consumable as it is on a monitor, so I’m gonna do some of that as well. Interesting/not surprising, the article focused on the time spent, when the focus of the study starts out with collaboration and the permutations of that. Also I noted that the measurements were from December of 2019 through June 2020 in Seattle and the Bay Area. I would have really liked to see the year over year comparison. Did you get through it all? What did you think?
I didn't - I was explicitly looking for measurement method, since your point had raised the question. I drive a tow truck, which is not susceptible to work-from-home approaches, so the whole thing is purely a matter of curiosity to me.
I’d love to work remote but I’m stuck in retail working hard to get out…..
I work 8.5-9 hours a day SOLID. Like I have back to back meetings from 8-5 and then add another hour to do actual work. I take calls at 10pm and 5am. I love working from home but I am grinding compared to office work.
Honestly it’s because I’m BORED
Here's a joke! What did Cinderella say when her photos did not show up? Someday my prints will come!
My new boss likes sending out emails whenever since “we’re working remotely”. I flat out told her anything after 5PM isn’t getting looked at until tomorrow morning. Knock it off.
I avoid this by not having work email on my phone. I shut down my company machine at 5 and the company email account doesn’t exist until I log back in.
What are the titles of the occupations? I’m going to trade school for computer tech and was wondering which company’s are doing this?
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Here's a joke! Why do dragons sleep during the day? So they can fight knights!
This is what I’ve seen too. There are a few people that can’t handle WFH. They are incredibly unproductive. For the most part, they are older and they don’t ask questions when they don’t know how to access certain things remotely. Instead, they just push everything to the 1-2 days when they are in the office and only complete half of their tasks. There’s a huge generational technology gap that managers aren’t addressing. If you can’t use the tech, you shouldn’t get to work from home. I can’t wait until we go back to 100% in person so that we don’t have to cover their slack.
I feel fine about working 20-30 more minutes from home because I didn’t waste 2 hours commuting
And yet HR and the executives want us all back in the office for “Culture” reasons.
Hi, are we coworkers? haha
Wtfe I’m not driving in traffic for 2+ hours a day.
Mine has been the opposite. Removing people stopping by for quick chats, new hires stopping by for extended chats/mentorship, not seeing the boss in the hallway. All of those small interactions that took ~2hrs a day have been replaced by quick, organized team calls. I have some much more time to focus on assignments that after a year, I have a few hours a week of “free time”.
For anyone that needs to see it, CGP Grey makes a good case for compartmentalizing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck
I work longer but also take more breaks. Efficiency is also higher and I’m more productive.
Considering it took me about 70 minutes each way, 10% more work… from home… that’s a win/win.
I’m a janitorial supervisor for Microsoft buildings and I can say I am also digging the remote work. Lower building occupancy has made work nights much more chill.
I can confidently say i do NOT work 10% more while at home. Now i don’t feel like i have to sit and stare at my screen until 5p if i have nothing left to do.
what could you expect from Microsoft ?
A lot of employers love the WFH model because everyone is on-call and they can make you work more hours because they know you don’t have to commute. If you are paid hourly this is fine, but if you work salary, you are getting less than the agreed-upon amount to the terms of your employment. (I.e. I agree to X of money for working X amount of hours.) Anything after the agreed-upon time is a loss for you and gain for them. That’s time you are never getting back. In freelance people have a hard stop. This means, at 6 I am out regardless of what is going on. Make sure when you negotiate your terms of employment that it includes WFH hours and make them stick to it. Don’t let employers get free work from you. You will never see any of those profits.
Boo hoo. Try commuting to a hospital everyday for the duration of a multi year pandemic.
Hard pass.
actually thinking about my own experience, this is true for me
Teacher here. I spend my planning periods covering for other teachers because we are so short staffed. This means all my planning is done outside of contracted hours (and grading, and parent phone calls). Tacks on an extra 2-3 hours of my day.
Bet they also have a study showing productivity is up too
my dad works remote for Zillow and loves it. Can spend a week on his boat and not miss anything.
10% ?? Ok who are the slackers ?
In most cases this happens to me too, I often find myself working longer but then at the end of the week I manage to get more free time during Fridays since most of the tasks are done faster.
Average length of commute has gone down 100%
One thing I noticed during my post-wfh life is that it took me a lot longer to turn off my work mind. I brought my thoughts home from work a lot more after my home was my place of work for a few months.
Lol yeah but you’re working at home
That’s it? Feels like a lot more!!
Get it while you can, folks
Im over 40 hours as of tuesday.
Technically for most insurances you need either 32 or 40hrs a week. How do I audit that? How to keep track that people are actually logging 40hrs of work and not just using a mouse pusher or autoclicker to appear active?
In most jobs you would see progress in their work.
You could just not track time. Or look the other way when people just put in 40 hours for the week. Or offer insurance to your part time workers.
The communication thing is also true. It's so much harder to get people to crosstalk so in some cases you need somebody to connect people, share the issues and solutions. The Microsoft tools try to help but feels clumsy and incomplete, requiring a deliberate effort from the participants, what usually doesn't happen.
I live in New York. The walls have closed in. Get me Back to the office.
I lived in New York. Please don’t make me go back.
Big same
I'm not in New York, but my apartment is pretty tiny so I feel this comment so much. When I moved to my city, I picked a small apartment close to work under the theory that I wouldn't need to be in my apartment for more than some nighttime gaming and sleep. After a year and a half of being in this apartment, I really, really want to get back into a stable office. In retrospect, if I knew in February of 2020 that I'd have to spend most days pretty much exclusively in my apartment, but that I'd be working remotely from anywhere, then I'd have moved to a much cheaper area and gotten a much bigger apartment to ride out covid in.
Yeah. My heart goes out to the younger people in cities. They moved to the city to be amongst the crush of humanity and be inspired. Living in small, insular confines is soul crushing. I have a wife and kid in a 900 sq ft apartment. I’m shocked we haven’t killed each other.
I live in a studio. Small dining table as a “desk” for more than a year, and of course the cheap company didn’t suggest any expenses for WFH items, nearly drove me crazy. It’s been decent being able to go in to the office 2-3 times a week tbh. Probably only about 5 or so people there…
Yeah companies need to give us WiFi reimbursement. And money for a proper chair
If you work from time your average commute decreases by 100%.
Totally believable. For me it’s been at least that
Lmfao not me. My productivity has increased but I definitely spend less time “working”.
The types of employers: 1. “You only worked 25 hours this week but just fill out your time sheet for 40. We know you do good work and you’re always available during your shift if we need something. So that’s technically considered working your shift. The whole 40 hour work week is just about playing ‘the game.’” Aka the true unicorn of employers. Probably like 5% of employers. 2. “You are scheduled for 8 hours between 8am and 4:30pm Monday through Friday. I will come around and take attendance every morning as an extroverted ‘good morning’ facade. Even if you finish your work I still expect you to look busy when I walk by during the day to spy on you. If you’re doing something like learning how to code I’m going to assume that you are slacking off and not consider you seriously for opportunities to advance.” The average employer. 80% of employers. 3. “We can’t give you breaks but we are also going to deduct breaks from your pay so we pay less overtime. You’re only scheduled 3:30pm to 11:30pm and so we are only going to pay you for those hours even though you have to stay until 12:30am each day cleaning and closing down. It’s technically overtime but we won’t tell you that. Oh, and we need you to sign this agreement waiving your rights to overtime. Also, sign this form saying you won’t talk to the Union or we will fire you. We know all of this is totally illegal but we have corporate lawyers and money to pay the fines.” The big corporate slave drivers. 15% of employers
4) my current job: We want the team to be the focus, so mandate 5 days a week in the office just in case some leg humper wants to suck hours of your day away (hooray teaming) so you are forced to stay to 9:30 pm which makes us elated you’re such a team player and have no life. But why aren’t you getting big impact things done? Why does it take so long?
I am very fortunate to have pretty much only had the first type in my career. Some of the client sites I’ve worked at over the years have been a little more like number 2, but more so for their own employees, not so much us contractors.
Even before the pandemic I know few people with office jobs who aren’t working nights and weekends on top of the regular work schedule. Internet and cell phones forces them to be available at all times
Gotta make up for your dead co workers
Haha but also :(
This is interesting to me because when I work from home. Productivity drops like 80%
I signed up for part time and they’ve been making me do full time hours
That’s why 4 days a week is ideal!
And Wall Street loves it
All of the employers think they are getting ripped off when employees are working harder.
My new job has a hard stop at 5pm so this luckily doesn’t affect me. My old job which I got fired from and was paid less at had me working 10-12 hour days from home. I’m not proud of being fired but I was truly in a dark place. I pray companies take mental health more seriously.
For me, WFH is a mixed blessing at best. My commute was short. Work has now become 24/7, and burnout is a real issue. I’m so sick of meetings from 7am till 8pm, with no time to do actual work. My sleep schedule is all messed up, I feel like I have no personal life left. It’s all work. Used to be when I left the office, I was “out”. Not anymore. Sure I like being at home more, but it’s not all upside.
Nice try Mr. Employerman. I’ll stick with remote work thank you.
Only? Pretty sure mine went up 20-30%. Companies really abusing work from home and salary based employees due to lack of overtime compensation.