Stay put or try to find remote work?

Fueled by Caffeine said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to SV ex:

Especially when you compare it to the hot desk, open concept model that they were planning for us- that very much looked looked like torture.

berkeley that open concept hot desk E36 M3. My last job had an office with  proper door abs full length walls.  What a novel concept.  

I really hope that when we get a new office, they really consider giving almost everyone a sort of puesdo office. I don't mind a cubicle, but I like high walls. My former boss had a cubicle with a door. 

Lots of benefits for such an arrangement, including slowing the spread of airborn germs. 

Yeah I don't think WFH will change too much after the pandemic - maybe it will be rolled back a bit, but I wouldn't be surprised if it instead expanded a bit. I thought the amount of remote-doable work being done on-site in the before-times was ridiculous and the pandemic forced employers to contain their residual Taylorism for once and actually give it a try, and for the most part it works well. Employers also have some incentives to continue WFH - easier to attract those 50%+ of employees looking for the 10% of jobs that offer it, and savings on building costs if they get rid of the office. I expect companies that own office space they no longer need will downsize to a small office as a "utility closet" for whatever physical stuff they need and start renting out their old office buildings, many will need to be converted into homes or apartment buildings. There are also huge environmental upsides to ending unnecessary commuting, especially right now when most cars are ICE-powered.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

OHSCrifle said:

In my experience, WFH is great and WFH sucks at the same time. I love not having an hour+ commute every morning and evening but the loss of social interaction is unhealthy. I do visit multiple construction sites every week. If you can mix in some time with others, it makes it much less mentally punishing.

 

I feel you.  There are days on days that I don't leave the house. Just tied to my computer chugging away.  
 

I have come to realize I would like a hybrid work environment.  The opportunity to go into an office a couple days a week for interaction and meetings combined with some work from home days should I need to cover a late start for the kids or have a water heater instsslled or just spend a day chugging on work to clear my backlog. But this 100% work from home is just not for me. It's not good for my mental health. 

Agree. I much preferred our previous setup where we went into the office 2-3 days per week. Even though my home setup is much nicer than what's at the office. 

But they asked and many folks wanted to stay working from home, for our office. And the OKC office was small anyway, so they just closed it. But Ellison had already told us last year we could work from home permanently if we wanted to. 

I know we are going to be building a new hub in another state with no income tax, similar to the 10k person campus they are building in Austin. I'm going to start probing to see if there is job move I could make in the company to get a raise sufficient to handle the increased cost of living there vs OKC. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to SV ex:

Especially when you compare it to the hot desk, open concept model that they were planning for us- that very much looked looked like torture.

berkeley that open concept hot desk E36 M3. My last job had an office with  proper door abs full length walls.  What a novel concept.  

Even before the pandemic it was found that hot-desking allows pathogens to spread much more easily between employees, so I think that the pandemic probably put a lot of nails in hot-desking's coffin along with letting the WFH genie out of the bottle.

It should be interesting to see how WFH influences employee retention. I could see a lot of companies who are otherwise skeptical of its benefits to adopt WFH policies simply because they don't want to lose good employees. 

pheller said:

It should be interesting to see how WFH influences employee retention. I could see a lot of companies who are otherwise skeptical of its benefits to adopt WFH policies simply because they don't want to lose good employees. 

On the other hand, how many companies actually see employees as unique assets?  Seeing the turn over in my company, especially for new people, it doesn't appear that retaining specific skill is that important of a priority.

Once we got rid of the typical pension system, turn over rates in my industry got really high.  And realistically, WFH can accelerate that, as now I may not have to worry about commuting all the way up to Pontiac if I wanted to work for Stellantis.

To put it mildly I do not like open office. I'd quit or go 100% WFH before I'd work 100% hot desk too. There are too many people with poor hygiene habits out there.

CAinCA said:

To put it mildly I do not like open office. I'd quit or go 100% WFH before I'd work 100% hot desk too. There are too many people with poor hygiene habits out there.

I honestly didn't even think of the hygiene, I just don't want everybody seeing what I'm doing. I feel like they'd be judging me for using a vlookup instead of an index match. Even if they're not, I hate being in an open area like that. I want to look out at whats going on, not have people look at me as they're passing.

mtn said:

CAinCA said:

To put it mildly I do not like open office. I'd quit or go 100% WFH before I'd work 100% hot desk too. There are too many people with poor hygiene habits out there.

I honestly didn't even think of the hygiene, I just don't want everybody seeing what I'm doing. I feel like they'd be judging me for using a vlookup instead of an index match. Even if they're not, I hate being in an open area like that. I want to look out at whats going on, not have people look at me as they're passing.

There's also a major noise issue, too- we had a floor on one building that was open, and the people I knew who visited there noted how incredibly loud it was.  

In reply to mtn :

You Luddite, who uses a vlookup anymore...

Yeah I do, I get judged for not using a pivot table 

hot desk is different from open office. 

open office would be a nightmare. 

hot desk (in seperate offices) would have me wondering how many farts have been pushed into the chair. 

In reply to alfadriver :

At Cummins the open offices were so loud they had to pipe in white noise to reduce the echoy loudness. 

New York Nick said:

In reply to mtn :

You Luddite, who uses a vlookup anymore...

Yeah I do, I get judged for not using a pivot table 

 

It is honestly just because I've been doing it for too long. I never think of index match, and by the time I do, I'm already done. 

Pivot tables are certainly useful, but not always the best method to get to your end goal.

pheller said:

hot desk is different from open office. 

 

open office would be a nightmare. 

 

hot desk (in seperate offices) would have me wondering how many farts have been pushed into the chair. 

I actually liked the open office concept at the office. Though they changed it to high walled cubicles a few months before the pandemic started. I hated that, as it was the same as every other job I'd had before. 

I liked the open concept because it didn't feel confined. We were on the top floor of the building we were in so from my desk I could see all the way to downtown and some of the interesting buildings in between. 

I've heard open office concepts were popular because they had big impacts on productivity. 

Althought that same article interviewed someone who said "open offices are great for Type A personalities who are focused and structured enough so much that they forget to look up from the work and be social with coworkers, they aren't great for more easily distracted staff."

I've heard of some open office concepts having "study rooms" - basically little cubicles or offices. I'd spend pretty much all my time in one of those - like I did in college. 

In reply to pheller :

Yeah, when we were sitting with the Devs, we would catch things they were talking about that were useful that otherwise may have not found out at all or until later. 

Don't want to hear people? Put on your headphones and listen to music/podcasts/etc. And people knew to respect if you had your headset (meetings) or headphones (music/etc) not to bug you unless it was actually important, or they would just send you a message on Slack to get back to when you were taking a break. 

pheller said:

hot desk is different from open office. 

 

open office would be a nightmare. 

 

hot desk (in seperate offices) would have me wondering how many farts have been pushed into the chair. 

We were being sold both at the same time.  Crazy.

alfadriver said:

mtn said:

CAinCA said:

To put it mildly I do not like open office. I'd quit or go 100% WFH before I'd work 100% hot desk too. There are too many people with poor hygiene habits out there.

I honestly didn't even think of the hygiene, I just don't want everybody seeing what I'm doing. I feel like they'd be judging me for using a vlookup instead of an index match. Even if they're not, I hate being in an open area like that. I want to look out at whats going on, not have people look at me as they're passing.

There's also a major noise issue, too- we had a floor on one building that was open, and the people I knew who visited there noted how incredibly loud it was.  

That's my major complaint with open office. WAY too much noise.

z31maniac said:

In reply to pheller :

Yeah, when we were sitting with the Devs, we would catch things they were talking about that were useful that otherwise may have not found out at all or until later. 

Don't want to hear people? Put on your headphones and listen to music/podcasts/etc. And people knew to respect if you had your headset (meetings) or headphones (music/etc) not to bug you unless it was actually important, or they would just send you a message on Slack to get back to when you were taking a break. 

The problem with headphones is that they go against why they want open offices in the first place- which is theoretically lots of collaberation.   And in this case, that really means butting in on other people's conversations- since you can already collaberate with offices and cubicles.  

If we did that, I would have gotten some nice headphones, and made sure that everyone heard me taking during a meeting I called in on- so that they had no idea what was going on.