I Would Rather Not Go, Back to the Office

[flotemysost]

I have to say, being able to go into the office last year (around June/July, I think) even though hardly anyone else was going in was a huge help for my mental health at that point, as I was losing the plot trying to work from my tiny furnace of a bedroom and being cooped up with my furloughed flatmate in a very small flat with barely any privacy all day. At that stage it wasn't about reconnecting with colleagues, just having a reason to get out of the flat and having a bit more space and peace to work. And it was very much optional.

I've been fortunate enough to change my living situation since then to something far more suited to home working now, but I know not everyone will have had that option. But then I'm also lucky in that my offices are physically nice comfortable modern welcoming spaces, not the clinical soulless cubicles I'm sure loads of people have to put up with.

[turnstyle]

Been pretty healthy for the last 18 months over lockdown, not even a sniffle - commuted into the office three days this week, and now I have some hardcore lurgee shit. Def not Covid, did a test to make sure.

Only about 25% of people on the trains wearing masks too. Thanks cunts!

[DrGreggles]

Working in Heathrow next week, so hopefully I can get fuel by then and avoid the train.
At least I can limit the number of cunts in my car to one.

[confettiinmyhair]

Been pretty healthy for the last 18 months over lockdown, not even a sniffle - commuted into the office three days this week, and now I have some hardcore lurgee shit. Def not Covid, did a test to make sure.

Only about 25% of people on the trains wearing masks too. Thanks cunts!

Yeah, I've been back in the office and using public transport for three days a week and two weeks in have been knocked for six by a heavy cold. Awaiting a test to be sent today.

[wooders1978]

We seriously need to change office culture and the expectation - one of my team went to the office sick as a parrot with this super lurg because he felt pressured to go in by senior management and HR he meekly explained as he'd passed a pcr test & "everyone's sick with it  up here" - just fucking work from home bro, let me worry about managers and HR
If I get lurg and feel unwell from the office I'm taking sick time until I am feeling better

[flotemysost]

Yeah, fuck that. My manager's had the 2021 Cunt Cold™ for about a week now and is opting to work from home until it's fully cleared up, because even though he's had a negative PCR he doesn't want to make anyone else feel anxious by coughing and snuffling in the office (likewise in the summer when the office first re-opened, he delayed going in as he had really bad hayfever). Also, if you're feeling a bit ropey then it's hardly like you're going to produce higher quality work having dragged yourself to the office, surely it makes sense to be at home where you can wrap yourself in a blanket and nurse a hot toddy during video calls.

[bgmnts]

Absolutely praying that it doesn't go back to full office doing fuck all for 8 hours, waking up at silly o'clock, the stress lesding you to an early death, having to deal with people you despise.

Just give me one day to come in and do what's necessary to be done in the office and let me spend the rest of my time doing things like cooking food and enjoying my life.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Grimly hilarious that the Conservative Party is promising "leveling up" and that people don't have to move to London to get ahead in life and there's this once in a century opportunity to actually leverage the post-covid desire to work from home into helping these things happen but they can't lean into it because they're funded by the commercial property industry, so instead the messaging is "get back to the office you woke cunts". Marvellous.

[flotemysost]

Yep, if colleagues are gossiping about you (projection much?) then they're gonna do it regardless of whether you're logged in from home or out of earshot down the corridor in the post room. Fucking ridiculously childish logic.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I see the Daily Mail is running a "Get back to the office" campaign" and today's front page is about claims by unnamed cabinet ministers that civil servants were unable to access vital documents due to working from home, with the headline "home working left britons at taliban's mercy".

Fairly sure that civil servants could have gone into the office if there were vital documents they needed to access. Still, the propaganda to push people back to the office continues in order to make sure that the rich don't lose any money. I'm sure the mainly retired people who read the Daily Mail will support this revolting propaganda and not question why people don't feel safe travelling on buses and trains where only 10% of people are wearing masks and people don't want the windows open because they'd rather make spreading covid easier than get a little chilly. Wear a jumper/coat on the bus if it is that much of an issue.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Iain Duncan Smith has a column headlined "In the 1940s they kept coming to the office - even when Hitler's bomb's were raining down". Too stupid to even engage with really.

Still, the propaganda to push people back to the office continues in order to make sure that the rich don't lose any money. I'm sure the mainly retired people who read the Daily Mail will support this revolting propaganda

It's probably partly an attempt to whip up resentment against "woke" young people who do jobs that can be done remotely and also an attempt to pander to their (imagined) base voters of plumbers and pipe fitters and so on who can't work from home.

[bgmnts]

The anxiety of knowing that covid is basically over and office work will be full time again very soon is just crushing.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Iain Duncan Smith has a column headlined "In the 1940s they kept coming to the office - even when Hitler's bomb's were raining down". Too stupid to even engage with really.

Imaging an episode of Dad's Army where Captain Mainwairing and Sgt Wilson are trying to get 1940's Zoom to work.

"Keep cranking the internet, Pike!"

IDS seems to be very concerned about landlords

[Milo]

The anxiety of knowing that covid is basically over and office work will be full time again very soon is just crushing.

Fingers crossed for a new variant.

Edit to add: just realised that sounded really snide but I didn't mean it like that. I have to go into work regardless and it does make it so much easier if as many other people as possible are staying home.

Although even then, me hoping for a new variant that kills loads of people and forces a harsher lockdown probably isn't fine. I'm sorry. I'm so tired.

[Uncle TechTip]

We fight to keep it.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Edit to add: just realised that sounded really snide but I didn't mean it like that. I have to go into work regardless and it does make it so much easier if as many other people as possible are staying home.

March 2020-March 2021: the golden age of commuting

[Milo]

It was wonderful. It was basically just me and my own private train.

[jobotic]

Please be a new variant that only affects wealthy far-right parasite filth. Please

[lipsink]

It's also funny that BoJo has been telling people they can only do their job properly if you're in the office when he's famously a lazy cunt who doesn't turn up to meetings and now he's fucked off on holiday again.

[turnstyle]

Been back to the commute for a few weeks now. 3 days in the office, commuting from the home counties. Seems to me the trains are back to pre-pandemic capacity, at least on my line. By the time I get on it's pretty much standing room only. There are constant reminders over the tannoy to 'social distance throughout the carriage', which is hysterical when you're rammed in cheek by jowl with the rest of the commuter cattle.

I had forgotten a lot of the things that used to wind me up about commuting, and they've all come flooding back like a 18 month old turd that suddenly pops back up from the u-bend. Jesus, so many little, crappy things that I had totally eliminated from my life when I was working from home. I hated commuting before, but now I've had a reprieve, going back has been very challenging. 

I also don't think it's worth it. If I'm honest, seeing colleagues has been good, and meetings in person are actually something of a relief after doing them via a screen, BUT 80% of the time I'm sat on my own working, thinking about how I could be doing exactly the same thing at home. We have 'team days' where we all come in, which ordinarily consist of a 20 minute catch up at the start of the day, and then the rest of it just sat at a desk, not communicating. And then there are the meetings where half the people are on video anyway, which defeats the purpose of coming into the office.

It's my hope that there's some backlash and our mandatory office days are pared back a little, because this is shiiiiiiiit.

[Milo]

You'd think there would have to be a spectacular difference in productivity to warrant giving everyone an effective pay cut and longer working day.

I'm now at the point that public transport is giving me panic episodes. It's just too many people. I can usually hold it together at the time but before and after I'm getting severe head pains, dizziness and weird lapses in awareness like skipped frames on a film.

[The Culture Bunker]

Been going in every Tuesday for a couple of months, and was expecting word that it would be going up to two - as has happened with other departments. Today, my manager comes up with an apologetic look and tells me she's been told to get us all in for three days. I presume it's either someone trying to impress someone up the ladder and we're just leading the way on what will be an organisation wide thing.

My immediate reaction was to quit, frankly. Which I won't, but after 18 months of avoiding pretty much all the headache-inducing white noise that working in an office involves, the prospect of 21+ hours a week back in the place in inducing major anxiety in me.

[Milo]

But why. Why do they want it.

[The Culture Bunker]

But why. Why do they want it.

I suspect part of it is that I work for a local authority, and there's pressure on the bigwigs from business to get us back in the city spending. That may well be the cynic in me talking, however.

I did hear that at about a year ago, the big cheese was heard ranting in the corridors about the office being a "ghost ship" - so there may be an element of "what's the point in being the boss when there's no-one there to see you being so?"

[Milo]

That might be it, the people with pointless jobs suddenly being revealed as pointless.

[bgmnts]

Have to do a PCR test hopefully coming in 24 hours as per docs recommendation. Work have mercifully allowed me to not have to come into the office tomorrow just in case.

It's most likely not covid, but I'm very grateful my organisation isn't taking advantage of the really stupid vague rules. E.g my mother has been double jabbed so is apparently okay to go in even when others are sick with covid after ten days.

Weird shit.

[flotemysost]

^ Fingers crossed you're 'rona-free there.

Has anyone (who is able to work remotely) done much/any work from somewhere like a public shared workspace or a cafe, if/when your home isn't a suitable workplace? My internet at home was MIA today but I couldn't be arsed to go into the office, so I headed to the somewhat poncey cafe round the corner.

Unfortunately my timing coincided with peak parent-and-toddler hell, so I clumsily typed in the Teams chat for the meeting I was due to join, "Sorry, I might have to be on mute/camera off as I'm surrounded by creaming babies!!" *a few seconds later* "sorry, screaming!". Did have to keep my camera off after that as I was trembling with silent laughter throughout the call.

I'm definitely going to the hostel over the road next time, you can sit outdoors and a pint costs about as much as a coffee does in the other place.

[QDRPHNC]

My local library is very good, comfy seats, free wifi and usually not too busy. When it gets loud put the headphones on. Although maybe not so suitable for zoom meetings.

[flotemysost]

That's a good shout, my local library isn't far, might be good for meeting-light days. Can get lateral flow kits there as well to boot.

[wooders1978]

I've got this super lurgy that's going about - bunch of bastards