Is the office dead?

[FondrenRoad 4378]

4 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I had my IT remove the Teams chat program from my laptop.  It would launch every time I turned my computer on, and I NEVER used it.  Some of the youngsters do, but I have dual monitors at my desk and one almost always has my outlook on it as that's how I deal with people- email.  So you need something?  Send me a fucking email.  

Ok gramps. But yeah, email should be the only thing used for work.  People are also a little too lax with what they say in company chat apps. 

[Sbbruin 21737]

2 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Ok gramps. But yeah, email should be the only thing used for work.  People are also a little too lax with what they say in company chat apps. 

[Michael Knight 12898]

once Steve Carell left

[Chewbacca 7730]

12 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

I'd like to think that flex office will be the way going forward, but Americans just don't work like that.  Our CEO opened his office because he wanted to go in. He openly announced that everyone else based in that office were welcome to stay remote, but could also work on a staggered schedule there with masks. All signed up for the staggered schedule on day one.  But the CEO isn't going in every day, so they have also been competing to be there on the days when he is. And these are employees who are experts in their field and who have the email and client satisfaction track record to prove they have been working great at home.  They have no need to brown nose. 

So I think ultimately, it will go right back to being about facetime with the boss in less than a year. Two employees working in the same department flexing in and out of the office just won't work.  That flex desk will belong to some individual.  They'll compete their way to 60 hours a week both in the office.  The only reason all this remote work worked is because everyone was remote.  When everyone was in the office, at least the boss saw you there even if you were posting on surly and didn't have shit to do.  

That being said, I do run my office so I dont care where people work as long as everyone does their work, and it's in Manhattan so way more expensive than it needs to be.  And we happen to be at the end of our lease.  So we are about to downsize it.  But that could still end up being shortsighted.  Because another thing that really matters is cameraderie.  I'm a huge Astros fan and have a coworker who is a huge Nats fan. That World Series mattered for office mojo.  And neither of us were going to take a flex day during it.  We had to be there to either talk shit or accept shit.  He is lucky that he is good at his job though. Nah, Nats won fair and square. But we all want that type of connection with coworkers. It doesn't happen on zoom and it actually matters. 

The bolded statements are in direct conflict with each other.  They want to be seen, they want to be around the CEO because they know that is how you advance in a small company.  Facetime matters.  Not so much in a satellite office.

[gyroprotagonist 2591]

work for large multi-nat company that had in their policy you could do 1 remote work day per week.  Then we went solely from home for the last year and we are told to stay remote until Q2 end.

I have a 45 min each way commute, but the kids' school is about a 30 minute trip and on the way, so it's not a big deal.  Once we open back up, i will definitely take advantage of the remote day. I would not be surprised if they extend that to 2-3 days per week.  We have all proved we are productive mf'ers working from home.

But some face time is sorely needed in my group.  we had 2 people transfer out and hired 2 new people.  I think they feel like they are not fully part of the team yet since we have all been remote.

[Michael Knight 12898]

Work is all about connections, humans are social animals not work drones. This past year you talk to members that are directly on your team or you work closely with but you miss out on the random conversations with people you pass in the hall or see in the break room. That opportunity lost is gonna negatively impact career mobility. Sure I might be as productive or even more so when not at the office but who the fuck goes to work to just be productive especially when that increased productivity hasn't been reflected in your pay.

The things I don't miss are the commute and putting on pants.

[Brisketexan 104624]

2 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

Work is all about connections, humans are social animals not work drones. This past year you talk to members that are directly on your team or you work closely with but you miss out on the random conversations with people you pass in the hall or see in the break room. That opportunity lost is gonna negatively impact career mobility. Sure I might be as productive or even more so when not at the office but who the fuck goes to work to just be productive especially when that increased productivity hasn't been reflected in your pay.

The things I don't miss are the commute and putting on pants.

This.  This is also really important.  The intangible of human connection in many jobs (not all, but you'd be surprised how many) is really important.  It creates energy that feeds on itself, it creates connection and trust and familiarity.  It's important in a thousand ways.

Also, pants suck.  After a couple of weeks of picking out a pair of slacks and actual shoes once we go back, I'll sigh and miss my shorts and flip flops.

[hayden_horn 11360]

for me, it absolutely is. 

i work in a large company that is based in the uk, where my boss sits, as well as the rest of my team. i have colleagues here in austin, and i think they are looking at reopening the office, but most of my meetings are on teams already. i kind of miss the camaraderie of my austin colleagues, but i'm in a perpetual teams chat with the people that sat around me. 

i moved last april and now have a dedicated home office room, and i've brought three monitors home and have a pretty sweet setup. i don't miss the commute, which is 45 minutes in the morning and an hour plus in the evenings. now i work from home from 9 - 6, shut my laptop, and start dinner. i haven't filled my car with gas for three months now. when my sons go back to school, i'll shlep them in the morning and get them in the afternoon, but i think i will largely work from home from here on out.

when travel and trade shows resume, that's where i'll do my networking. 

it's funny, because when i thought this was temporary, i kind of hated the idea, but we were in a much smaller space and were kind of on top of each other. in the new house, it's totally doable for me.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

2 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

The bolded statements are in direct conflict with each other.  They want to be seen, they want to be around the CEO because they know that is how you advance in a small company.  Facetime matters.  Not so much in a satellite office.

Not at ours. Most of our promotions are based on productivity and client relationships. Seniority still happens too. None have been about facetime or being seen sitting at a desk. I suppose if someone was trying to recover from a mistake or client complaint, facetime would help, but that hasn't happened. 

Along those same lines, there has been something positive that's happened during the pandemic. When people aren't that busy, they now admit to it, so work has been better distributed. This was not the case when just being at the office, with work to do or not, was considered "work."

[swraith 336]

22 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Ok gramps. But yeah, email should be the only thing used for work.  People are also a little too lax with what they say in company chat apps. 

I am on the opposite side of this.  

 

Email achieves very little productivity in our office.  People send out emails.  The emails get ignored.  No real progress gets made.  Email threads are just batting the ball back and forth.  Maybe its just us...but email...doesn't get much done.  

 

Drop me into a Teams chat.  We can sort it out fairly quick.  Typing is too hard? Fire up a Teams audio/video call.  Its an impromptu discussion...just like in the office.  We get things straightened out...people get prioritized...and we make progress...via the virtual platform.  I have shifted a large portion of my work from email to the Teams platform.  I hated Teams when we were still in the office.  I didn't get it.  But I did get it...when I was 100% remote.

 

Also...turn off Teams syncing and notifications on your phone.  My iphone battery will go all day with Teams on all day.  I will say...once your video meeting on Teams goes longer than hour...my laptop starts to get grumpy.

[swraith 336]

10 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

That all sounds miserable. What do you do?

We are B2C...deregulated energy.  So are aren't doing anything like client services.  Our call center handles phone calls from customers.

 

I report to President of the company and manage a portfolio of responsibilities from wholesale operations to legal activities to commodity hedging and risk management.  Basically I participate in setting our corporate strategy and then schedule meetings to point people in the right direction to get the strategy executed.

 

I don't do much real work anymore. 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This.  This is also really important.  The intangible of human connection in many jobs (not all, but you'd be surprised how many) is really important.  It creates energy that feeds on itself, it creates connection and trust and familiarity.  It's important in a thousand ways.

Also, pants suck.  After a couple of weeks of picking out a pair of slacks and actual shoes once we go back, I'll sigh and miss my shorts and flip flops.

Roll into the office in shorts and flip flops then.  Back in the dot com era, I often did. Office dress codes are sexist. Men's business dress code is entirely rigid while women have some flexibility. One shouldn't have to choose to identify as a woman in order to show some leg in the summer.  At my old job, I had to sweat my ass off in a damn tie every day. Those summer dresses started to look real comfortable. 

I'm also not even sure I have a pair of slacks that currently fit.  The gym misses me. 

[InkaUtexas 25518]

43 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I had my IT remove the Teams chat program from my laptop.  It would launch every time I turned my computer on, and I NEVER used it.  Some of the youngsters do, but I have dual monitors at my desk and one almost always has my outlook on it as that's how I deal with people- email.  So you need something?  Send me a fucking email.  

Or call me. we do not need to set up a Teams meeting to talk for 3-5 minutes. And we also do not need everyone on the team on the call. meetings cost money and should be focused and targeted. A trend I see is senior exec's love them since they fill up the calendar. 

[Sbbruin 21737]

8 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Roll into the office in shorts and flip flops then.  Back in the dot com era, I often did. Office dress codes are sexist. Men's business dress code is entirely rigid while women have some flexibility. One shouldn't have to choose to identify as a woman in order to show some leg in the summer.  At my old job, I had to sweat my ass off in a damn tie every day. Those summer dresses started to look real comfortable. 

I'm also not even sure I have a pair of slacks that currently fit.  The gym misses me. 

I was only working from home for a couple of months in April and May.  Prior to that I was typically biz casual- slacks, dress shirt, no tie, sportcoat with me but rarely on.  More casual on Fridays- i.e. jeans instead.  Since June I've been jeans every single day.

 

And the short sleeve dress shirt needs to make a comeback.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Sbbruin

[DonkeyCigars 144]

I never had an office really. The office to me, was going onsite to y'all's offices, and working from airports and hotel rooms in between. If you guys don't have offices to go to anymore, that means I'm stuck in this virtual world forever which sucks. I miss expensing Tomahawk Ribeyes and decent seats to sporting events.

That said, I think we will bounce back.

I went to a work/networking event last week for the first time since Covid-- probably 30-40 people in attendance, everyone was so excited to be there, no masks, handshakes all around, from President to EVP to CxO's to the Sales folks. All anyone could talk about was how awesome it was and that more is coming. I think once people get a taste of events and in-person dealings again, it will be a short jump to back to business.

I also have customers (Fortune 250's) who are asking me to come onsite in April/May as they are back in the office. That's a huge signal for me and I'm overjoyed to hear it.

I also saw AAL raised $10bn on a bet that air travel will be back. A lot of that bet has to bake in the business folks because an airline can't exist just on vacations and family visits.

Edited March 11, 2021 by DonkeyCigars

[956 Worldwide 34443]

49 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Ok gramps. But yeah, email should be the only thing used for work.  People are also a little too lax with what they say in company chat apps. 

I had a great thing going for about three months into the pandemic, all the people using teams were junior to me and I ignored everything TEAMS related. Send me an email or call.  Then some senior folks who are non-local adopted TEAMS and life has sucked ever since. 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

11 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I was only working from home for a couple of months in April and May.  Prior to that I was typically biz casual- slacks, dress shirt, no tie, sportcoat with me but rarely on.  More casual on Fridays- i.e. jeans instead.  Since June I've been jeans every single day.

 

And the short sleeve dress shirt needs to make a comeback.

What about the pleated pants?

[Sbbruin 21737]

1 minute ago, FondrenRoad said:

What about the pleated pants?

Wait, are you saying they're NOT in style?

[Neonmoon 38127]

It will be industry specific, company specific, persons specific. No one size fits all.

There are two sides to every coin. For every person that benefits from quick drop by conversations or after meeting conversations, or overhearing something and learning, contributing to that conversation, I can show you some dumbfuck that spends 3 hours per day just shooting the shit and believes he’s the hardest worker on the company because he thinks that 2 minutes of work talk justifies 2 hours of bullshitting. 

People have way to many fucking meetings. This meeting should have been an email is a real thing. Same goes for the dumbfucks who send an email and then walk over and say exactly what they said in the email. Do one or the other. Both is not needed. Some meetings are important. There is a healthy medium. Just don’t think many companies try to reach that medium 

I was originally excited about working from home. I always felt I could never get any work done because of meetings, drop-by conversations, etc. but after working from home, I realized I would have liked some kind of balance, some days at the office, some at home. Maybe it was the never leaving home that made it worse, but missed the human connection after a while. 

This reminds me of the private office v open concept debates. There are pros and cons to both. Companies will always choose what their consultants say is best anyway 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Neonmoon

[FondrenRoad 4378]

1 minute ago, Sbbruin said:

Wait, are you saying they're NOT in style?

Even if they wanted to be, where can you even buy a pair?  Have to get them custom made. 

[Bama Chick 28596]

On the one hand I like not having a commute, but on the other, I feel like I live at work. It’s hard to separate personal life from work and then when I can turn it off, there’s no time to decompress. Frankly, I will welcome going into an office once I’m vaxed 

As a hospital employee, I have been in office for 90% of the pandemic. I can do some things from home but I need to be there for most of it.

But I saw something somewhere that resonated with me about working from home - “We aren’t ‘working from home’ we’re ‘living and sleeping at work’.”

There’s definitely some companies that will buy into that and that’s depressing.

[ndawg 1242]

Overall, I bet most of us probably expect a decline in demand for office space distributed unevenly across sectors. I envision a lot of office->residential conversions in the next couple decades, as well as a continuation of the trend towards coworking facilities, that allow office space usage to be elastic.

Personally, I miss seeing coworkers in person, sharing a drink after work with them, and am fucking sick of being on Zoom calls.

Work from home proponents often tout how much more focus they have at home, but when you happen to be collaborating with with other people, you lose focus over video chat.

If you enjoy working with others interactively and solving challenges together, you're probably eager to get back to the office. If you're more reclusive in your work habits, you're probably elated that you'll never have to go back to an office again. Most people won't be firmly in one bucket or the other, but I know I'm more on the "eager to return to the office" side of the spectrum.

[hayden_horn 11360]

38 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

I went to a work/networking event last week for the first time since Covid-- probably 30-40 people in attendance, everyone was so excited to be there, no masks, handshakes all around, from President to EVP to CxO's to the Sales folks.

this sounds terrifying to me still, assuming not everyone was vaccinated. my industry is trade show heavy, and half the revenues of my parent company rely on trade shows, and i don't think we'll ever have the same sort of trade show experience that we had before.

actually, that event sounds borderline spring break kids irresponsible.

[DonkeyCigars 144]

2 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

this sounds terrifying to me still, assuming not everyone was vaccinated. my industry is trade show heavy, and half the revenues of my parent company rely on trade shows, and i don't think we'll ever have the same sort of trade show experience that we had before.

actually, that event sounds borderline spring break kids irresponsible.

Good, bad or indifferent, I'm here to tell ya! It's coming back.

I think I read Florida is at 95% hotel capacity, Disney world tickets are sold out, and business events are coming back. A topic of conversation at the bar/drinks portion of the event was "where did you get your vaccine and which one, or when did you get COVID for the antibodies, etc." and "Where are you going for spring break, Vail? Denver? Florida etc.?"

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by DonkeyCigars

[Sbbruin 21737]

35 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Companies will always choose what their consultants say is best anyway 

[Beantown Express 2.0 6554]

36 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Even if they wanted to be, where can you even buy a pair?  Have to get them custom made. 

Pleated pants go great with my double breasted suit jacket with big shoulder pads and a super wide tie.  

[InkaUtexas 25518]

[FondrenRoad 4378]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

It will be industry specific, company specific, persons specific. No one size fits all.

There are two sides to every coin. For every person that benefits from quick drop by conversations or after meeting conversations, or overhearing something and learning, contributing to that conversation, I can show you some dumbfuck that spends 3 hours per day just shooting the shit and believes he’s the hardest worker on the company because he thinks that 2 minutes of work talk justifies 2 hours of bullshitting. 

People have way to many fucking meetings. This meeting should have been an email is a real thing. Same goes for the dumbfucks who send an email and then walk over and say exactly what they said in the email. Do one or the other. Both is not needed. Some meetings are important. There is a healthy medium. Just don’t think many companies try to reach that medium 

I was originally excited about working from home. I always felt I could never get any work done because of meetings, drop-by conversations, etc. but after working from home, I realized I would have liked some kind of balance, some days at the office, some at home. Maybe it was the never leaving home that made it worse, but missed the human connection after a while. 

This reminds me of the private office v open concept debates. There are pros and cons to both. Companies will always choose what their consultants say is best anyway 

I just had a meeting to set up two additional meetings. That was the entire purpose of the meeting. And you say meetings are worthless. 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

29 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Pleated pants go great with my double breasted suit jacket with big shoulder pads and a super wide tie.  

I still have my suit I got for graduation, and it still fits like a 12 year old trying on his dad's suit.  90s style was the worst. 

[B00M 6280]

13 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I work 7-10 hours every day, Monday-Sunday

but why? Thought you were an engineer. No hobbies? 

[Slacks 6791]

I've been working from home since July of 2000...

The only question I have now is what to do with all the slacks I bought for the days I go visit my clients in their offices, because now we're visiting at Twin Peaks.

[jimmyjazz 45558]

1 minute ago, B00M said:

but why? Thought you were an engineer. No hobbies? 

Startup.  Significant upside.  Plus, I love the work.  (Finally.)

[B00M 6280]

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

Startup.  Significant upside.  Plus, I love the work.  (Finally.)

Ahh, gotcha. Congrats and good luck!

[Foosters 17733]

12 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

I have read and listened to too many folks who have not shared enjoyable experiences being around their family so much for the last year. I feel sad when I hear that because what an opportunity to grow closer with those you love and care about the most. I am glad that you seem to have had a good experience being around your family more.

Being single for me made for a 2020 that wound up being a great year personally. I feel a bit guilty saying that still because of what we endured as a country over the last year. 

I think for a lot of people, its not that being around the family hasn't been enjoyable, it just makes things much harder. I have remarked many times how grateful I have been for all of the extra hours I have been able to spend with my daughter. But she was home every day from March - September when both me and my wife were working. I was physically going into work 3-4 days a week so things were incredibly difficult for my wife. Additionally, depending on the age of the kid(s), difficulty can run the spectrum. Now imagine doing it for hours a day for months on end. Obviously it would have been much easier without a kid. That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed the time with my family.

2 hours ago, Michael Knight said:

Work is all about connections, humans are social animals not work drones. This past year you talk to members that are directly on your team or you work closely with but you miss out on the random conversations with people you pass in the hall or see in the break room. That opportunity lost is gonna negatively impact career mobility. Sure I might be as productive or even more so when not at the office but who the fuck goes to work to just be productive especially when that increased productivity hasn't been reflected in your pay.

The things I don't miss are the commute and putting on pants.

I will say despite how dangerous and ridiculous it has been to physically enter a crowded building almost every day of the week, I have often remarked to my wife that it broke up the monotony of the lockdown and may have positively contributed to my mental health as I was around colleagues and some sense of normalcy.

[DaysOff 7853]

You can take Zooms, Teams, and Webex, roll them into a ball, jam that ball up your ass, and launch yourself into the sun.
With all due respect.

We heard business travel was dead for the airlines after 911. Reading the same nonsense again. The first time an outside sales guy loses as sale because he didn't make the trip when his competition did will be the end of zoom era. Lots of those guys actually want back on the road to accrue their hotel/airline points and cheat on their wives.

[burntorangebongos 10681]

I worked from home when I bought my present home in 2004 and always had a home office. I would visit customers and go to trade shows and get to know my co-workers during in-person work meetings or trade show trips. I changed my job around 2010 and now commute and have done so for the most part since then. 

My boss got us into a bigger office space prior to the pandemic with the intention of everyone working at the office to foster more collaboration among the teams. Now, I am the only one coming into the office. I can bring my dogs, I have a small fridge in my office aside from the big one in the kitchen, and he keeps me in coffee and iced tea. My commute is even easier now with less traffic. I usually leave at 4:30 most days. I liked saving money on gas but this isn't bad and if everyone returns soon, I'm sure I'll adjust. I'll just have to re-train myself not to yell at my computer and get quieter again. 

[Brisketexan 104624]

13 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

We heard business travel was dead for the airlines after 911. Reading the same nonsense again. The first time an outside sales guy loses as sale because he didn't make the trip when his competition did will be the end of zoom era. Lots of those guys actually want back on the road to accrue their hotel/airline points and cheat on their wives.

Agree.  When it comes to dealing with clients, a lot of what I'm selling is "myself."  My presence, my approach, my personality.  It's a LOT harder to do that over Zoom.  I have had to appear before clients several times recently, and it really bothered me not to be there in person.  That just can't be replaced.

[Sbbruin 21737]

It'll be a boomerang of sorts.  Companies will TRY to make WFH hybrid be the long term solution, but they will find that ultimately it doesn't work effectively (enough).  While rent is a big line item on a company's balance sheet, it is insignificant it profitability suffers significantly. 

[tantric superman 4667]

I guess some of you guys took my TEAMS comment, which is based upon the fact that I have knowledge of two platforms for which I have to sometimes put on a shirt other than my stained Key West rooster shirt with the holes in the armpits, rather seriously.

 

[DigglerontheHoof 21063]

52 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

We heard business travel was dead for the airlines after 911. Reading the same nonsense again. The first time an outside sales guy loses as sale because he didn't make the trip when his competition did will be the end of zoom era. Lots of those guys actually want back on the road to accrue their hotel/airline points and cheat on their wives.

Yeah, sales guy checking in.  The work from home thing has been no big deal; I've worked from home for 19 years.  However, the no travel thing has been a bitch.  At first, it was actually kind of nice.  I'd been a road fiend for about 8 months before the shutdown and was pretty burned out on airports and travel.

But, fuck, now I can't wait to get out and see prospects and customers in person.  But, we are in a no-travel mode until, at least, the end of August.

And, yes, I miss the perks.  Cheating isn't an issue b/c I'm divorced but do miss the out of town strange. 

[Captainant 27463]

My office has been remote since late Feb/early March 2020. Customers have grown leaps and bounds, and many of their stagnating projects actually got a kick in the pants and unstuck thanks to the general shakeup from COVID. My team has started coming once every 3-4 weeks just to have some face to face time to meet folks hired over the last year and try to maintain the rapport.

Most of my customers are planning on scaling back their office space to 50-75% of what they were using previously, and they're planning to ditch their open office floor plan in favor of more space between people

[Celery Man 20886]

I’m an extroverted introvert. I don’t know if that is a thing - I need to talk to people but it wears me out. I’m always “on” around people, and I like to spend some time “on”, but to really get focused work done being on is a distraction. Prior to the pandemic, I would show up at 7:30, either do meetings with my team in Turkey or do really productive work for a few hours. Stand up with my local team at 10, probably a few meetings lasting till noon or into early afternoon, head home to beat the traffic out of downtown (or eat lunch at home), and then work some more at home and call it a day. I would love to get back to that, and probably will try. In every day, people see me and can find me, home before 4 and can transition right from wrapping up work to starting dinner or going for a walk or whatever.

I lost my job in aviation software and started a new one in a different city (with a move across the country) during the pandemic. I’ve met two of my coworkers in person, one being my boss. I’m used to connecting with people through Teams and slack or whatever. I feel like I’ve built good working relationships with my team, but it is really hard for me to branch out post that. I still don’t have a good understanding of the other groups or the size of the organization or where we “sit” relative to other groups. And it’s hard to scratch past the veneer of personality that people put on for a few minutes of conversation while everyone joins a meeting. I like to know everyone’s name, what they do, and a “thing” we can connect on. That grows to really solid working and personal relationships and is hard to get through those little snippets of conversation if you don’t work closely.

 One thing we fostered with my old team (which had some key remote people) was a real watercooler channel (and other non work channels) on our chat server. It helped that it was a thing we set up on our own before Microsoft built it into Teams, and wasn’t visible to executive leadership or hr. We don’t have that at the new place, and the idle chat is sparse and very filtered. LinkedIn chatter, not message board chatter. I wish people were talking about their bikes or video games or synthesizers or what have you.

I think we’ll be more flexible than we were, but still an expectation that you’re around on some kind of a regular basis. I suspect that people who aren’t remarkably talented technical people, and people who don’t really get how to involve themselves beyond doing what they are asked, will miss out on some of the organic growth and learning that happens when you are physically near your colleagues. 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5106]

I manage a field team for my company, only 1 of the team worked in the office before the pandemic, the rest of us needed to hop a plane to get there so we were there sporadically at best.  We are a team that is used to getting on airplanes, but it wasn't to hit the office, so all of us were good with this work from home thing.  I think most of us are going stir crazy that we can't get onsite with customers anymore, and I am really missing getting face time with my team.  I'm ready to get us together as soon as we're able, but it's more about the camaraderie than it is a need for us to be in person to get work done.  Also, I'm ready to get the fuck out of my house for a few days. 

My company is going to be more flexible, some essential workers will still be at a desk 5 days a week, but most people, including most who had no flexibility at all before the pandemic, will work from home 2-3 days/week once we go back to the office.  No one is going to be asked to go back to the office until at least July 5 no matter their role, though. I suspect my one team member that can commute to the office will go back to going in most days just because he can.  

I haven't had a regular desk in an office in 10 years now, even when I worked for an Austin based company, the biggest and hardest difference for me has been the lack of work travel.  Sitting at home has gotten super old.  I'm anxious for companies to start putting people back in their offices so that my team can start to go visit again.  If everyone is working from home that's going to put a kink in those plans and I'm not ready to give up work travel just yet.

[GopherRock 1765]

Target seems to think that the office is close to dead. They're bailing out of their lease of another high-rise building in downtown Minneapolis.

[StruggleBus 3922]

It’s most definitely not dead. Millions will be back in the office within a few months. But more flexible working arrangements will be here to stay in many cases.

[NameAlreadyInUse 5106]

Yup, my company is planning to downsize on office space due to the new flexibility, but I suspect they are underestimating the number of people who will want to go into the office every day.  WFH is not for everyone.

[YChang 3430]

Yeah, trying to brainstorm over WebEx, Zoom etc sucks.

Office’s aren’t dead, it’ll just change. What I’m hoping is that this WILL kill the stupid open office.

[Macanudo 12927]

On 3/11/2021 at 9:19 AM, Brisketexan said:

There's no separation.  There's no "he's left for the day" (again, if it is important, or someone I really want/need to talk to, I took those calls before).  People call and send you an email at 9:00 pm, and expect you to answer.  

 

I had that issue before any of this ever started.    We've grown into a culture that has instant access to people.   The cell phone, instant messaging, etc. have all made too many people "always on."   I learned to break that habit during the pandemic.   I stopped sending emails at 7:45 at night or texting someone at 7:15 in the morning.   I made sure that my team knew that we needed to keep work in between X-Y hours of the day.   And we have done that for the most part.    I don't work the monstrous hours I used to partly because being home is more productive for me.  There are some issues when the kids are home on breaks or summer but I can overcome that.   In the office, there were always WAY more interruptions than at home.  

I've managed a team where more than half of my people are in a different city than me for 2.5 years now.  I was already "remote" based on some them not sitting in the same building as I was.   And they're trainers.   Training remotely sucks big time.   But managing doesn't.   

I personally want to keep working from home.  I avoid the 1.5-2 hour commute, I see my family way more than before and I have learned how to really manage my time and my team's time effectively.   I know zoom and webex don't replace the water cooler but I probably talk to my remote people (out of Houston) more know than I did when I sat at my desk in the office.   The trade off is less communication with my boss and the ones in Houston that report to me but it's been far more of a benefit than a hindrance.   

I know my company is trying to reduce it's footprint in Houston.  We own several buildings and hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space.  They'd be thrilled to rent that to someone else and save on the costs.  I'm OK with that.   Someone else mentioned upthread about being able to move and work from wherever you want.   That's what I'm hoping for.   Once the Macanudo-ette's get off to college, I'd love to pick up and move somewhere besides being stuck on Houston.  

[pantone159 712]

2 hours ago, YChang said:

What I’m hoping is that this WILL kill the stupid open office.

Yes please. That is the one thing about current office culture that needs to die a horrible permanent death.

 

[Guest Lobo]

When y'all say "open office", are you talking about co-working spaces or your individual company 'remodeling' and taking out walls 'n shit to put in big tables and open desks, etc?