I Would Rather Not Go, Back to the Office

[Sebastian Cobb]

Our office is doing an Xmas lockdown from now till the 5th Jan (as we're in Scotland we get the 4th off, but we're open between Xmas and New Year). Previously even with Scotland's work from home advice a lot of people had been going in, either to use equipment they couldn't do at home or to escape their families or for the exercise or just to drink high quality coffee. We've had months of meetings about going back to the office and complicated flexible working rules and all kinds of things, but the loungewear can stay on a while longer.

Based on how the days fall this year, anyone coming back before the 10th is a mug imo. You can be off from the 24th and only use 6 days leave.

[shoulders]

I did get a call yesterday from my line manager saying the "carry on as normal" message had been withdrawn and I'm to stay at home at least for this side of New Year. Seemed a somewhat rapid about-turn, but I have a feeling the union may have been involved.

Good news. That or the bosses have heard on the grapevine that full fuckdown is on the way in January and seen the writing deathscrawled on the walls.

[shoulders]

Based on how the days fall this year, anyone coming back before the 10th is a mug imo. You can be off from the 24th and only use 6 days leave.

Unfortunately when you're on a small team it doesn't work like that. Everyone has to be in 1 day at least between Xmas and NY to make the rota work and "be fair".

Also, winter is covid times so why  would I or anyone waste 6 days leave when your activities are limited by covid restrictions and spending your paid holiday immersed in the general sense of everything getting worse again?

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's not a waste, you get 16 days off. It's not my problem if you can't amuse yourself with them.

[Alberon]

I'm in facility management at the uni I work at so I'm expected to be in until the 23rd and then back on the 4th.

There's virtually no other bugger in though and as long as I'm not using public transport to get in and out I'm probably isolating just as well as I would working from home.

[shoulders]

It's not a waste, you get 16 days off. It's not my problem if you can't amuse yourself with them.

This is also available over Easter and the Cunt of Deaths fucking weekend of cumstained misery, both of which will be at times of year where it is warm, where Covid has receded, and where it is likely we can GET OUT OF HERE.

Yes, you need to take 8 days rather than 6 on both occasions but that's better than squandering them in a Covid bolthole in the UK in terrible weather.

It's not that I can't amuse myself, far from it, it's that I can and I know how to assess the merits of one block of time versus another.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Going out? Grazing after Christmas is a valuable activity in itself.
 Covid or not

[mothman]

That's me done at work until at least the 5th. I think there'll be some WFH stuff to do on the 4th but if it gets too stultifying I can always encounter internet connectivity issues. But the main thing is, food shopping aside I can now avoid the diseased hordes for the duration.

Arses up in the air of course, ready for your servile shafting by 'the man'

Nope, read it several times now still not sure what point he's making.

[Ham Bap]

Anyone been told to get back to the office again?

Im starting to see signs that we're moving back soon. I really dont want to. COVID numbers, where I am, are currently twice as high as they were in October.
But even despite that and if COVID wasnt around I still dont want to go back to the office.

[Cuellar]

Our company just got bought by some big bastards and we had a big 300 person zoom call about STRATEGY and GOALS for the coming YEAR, and some HR bastard said they ('we', I suppose) are going to move to a 2 week remote working per year MAX policy.

Cue furious interjections and messages in the chat, it all got very fractious. Given our company is about 15 people normally it was quite a shock.

AND we'd just signed new contracts a month or so ago saying 'maybe we'll do 2 days a week in the office, if you like. maybe. no pressure'.

So if they try and enforce this 2 week remote max policy I'm going to leave. Probably going to leave anyway, but there you go.

[DrGreggles]

Anyone been told to get back to the office again?

Got an email and text last night reminding us that "We don't base our policy on government guidance, so please don't think you are required to return to the office because of anything you may have seen or heard on the news. We consider our current practice to be the safest possible way for us to work, and we don't see this changing in the forseeable future."

[bgmnts]

This is like summer holidays but actually positive and times ten.

I know some people crave the office grind but surely this is just another way for society to just crush the working person. Grim.

[The Culture Bunker]

I've been going in three days a week since before Christmas (not my shout, but that's me being a dickhead or something, apparently). The big boss sent out an email last night saying everyone will be hauling it back in before long - might be a culture shock to those who have been lucky enough to not set foot in the place for 22 months.

[wooders1978]

Fighting tooth and nail to keep the three days in two days at home model
Our offices are fucking shitholes in the middle of nowhere, which doesn't help

[SpiderChrist]

Had an email today - no change. Work from home if you can, tell your boss if you're coming into the office, masks mandatory in the office, and if you test positive you can't come in for 7 days (not sure how they can police that one, but still).

[ElTwopo]

My company have said today that we'll be going back to working one day a week in the office from the beginning of March. I'm actually going to go in a couple of days a week from next Monday, due to being a bit bored of being at home all the time (and being one of those lucky people who has really decent colleagues).

As for the long-term, we're moving to a new office soon which is way too small to accommodate even half of us. The mandatory one-day-a-week policy will effectively be permanent for us, COVID or no COVID (unless you choose to go in more than that, which you can do).

Feel rather lucky really, considering some employers in this thread sound like total cunts.

[Beagle 2]

I feel quite happy with the attitude of my employer, working from home was very rare before the pandemic but now they've decided to switch to permanent hybrid working. When our family all got it this week they told me to go away and report back next Monday, which I was incredibly grateful for on the day that the messaging from the government was "it's over, man up".

Not really sure what I'm meant to do on Monday though, day five and we're all still testing firmly positive so it could be another week in the house. I guess we'll have to muddle through like we did in most of 2020, Christ what a shit time that was.

[flotemysost]

Feel rather lucky really, considering some employers in this thread sound like total cunts.

Me too. The concept of a manager forcing to someone to go into the workplace unnecessarily while they're actively infected with covid is beyond mental to me.

I'm also very lucky in that my line manager is a union rep, as well as just a thoroughly good person, and also as a working parent they were already all too aware of the injustices around flexible/hybrid working. In my case, working from home full time really isn't for me - I just get unbelievably bored and frustrated being stuck in the same place with no one to talk to all the time (but I don't think that means anyone else should be forced in, everyone's got different working styles and home environments!) - and I've been fully supported in that, so yeah I've been very lucky.

Well I say "lucky", this is just how it should be, surely. Staggered by the sheer petty levels of cunty micromanagement and unnecessary wielding of power in some workplaces.

[jamiefairlie]

The only answer is to vote with your feet. If everyone forced into a working pattern they don't like moved to a job that provides it then the norm will change very quickly. Passive aggressive acquiescence will change nothing. In my experience it's worth changing job for that reason alone.

[Milo]

That does seem to be the general consensus now - flexible options in working will be a competitive factor when recruiting.

[bgmnts]

That does seem to be the general consensus now - flexible options in working will be a competitive factor when recruiting.

You'd hope this would be a step forward in allowing workers to have slightly more agency over their lives but I highly doubt it .

[shoulders]

In some sectors it is here to stay but watch as some attempt to claw everything back to how it was.

Think of the poor sandwich shops

[Milo]

The Mail has a predictable front page story about civil servants 'refusing to return to their desks'.

[Crenners]

There probley too busy drinking out a suitcase 😂😂😂

[Milo]

There probley too busy drinking out a suitcase 😂😂😂

Great stuff guys!

[flotemysost]

Think of the poor sandwich shops

In all honesty I think I patronised sandwich shops way more while wfh than not - my office has a subsidised canteen so I'd normally just go there, or bring in packed lunch. During lockdown I actually really looked forward to my lunch break chats with the bloke working at the coffee shop near me, I'm sure the poor guy had to put up with an earful from legions of lonely home workers every day back then.

Also if we're talking chains, Pret sandwiches are fucking impossible to eat in a dignified way, anyway - it's the disparity between the textures of the fillings, take a bite and end up dragging out a slab of avocado or a gargantuan tomato disc with it, a wisp of mayonaisey rocket flapping against your chin - best done in private, I find.

[thelittlemango]

In all honesty I think I patronised sandwich shops way more while wfh than not - my office has a subsidised canteen so I'd normally just go there, or bring in packed lunch. During lockdown I actually really looked forward to my lunch break chats with the bloke working at the coffee shop near me, I'm sure the poor guy had to put up with an earful from legions of lonely home workers every day back then

Same. When I was in an office it was always the local Sainsburys for most people, stocking up on things to make your own lunch in the kitchen to save money or getting a meal deal. Now I'm indefinitely working from home and always around my kitchen it gets very repetitive and so a walk to get something more interesting from a sandwich shop and see beyond the four walls of the living room once a week is much more common.

[shoulders]

Any item of finger food (which a sandwich to go definitely classes at) where the contents cannot be eaten in clean bites without dragging entire elements of it away is fundamentally broken by design.

I find most sandwiches and burgers deeply middling but with finger food at least pay attention to ergonomics.

As for corporate sandwich chains paying sky high rent in city centre  commercial property, fuck em. This isn't even what it's about anyway. The whole back to the office push is largely about office space built by speculators who can't lose, and banks that loaned them the money. Who by extension can't lose.

At the risk of going all Mr Robot, smash the system, they are stealing in front of our faces while tasering homeless people for stealing food.

And sort out the fucking sandwiches cunts

[Milo]

It's a chance to redistribute opportunity - suddenly the village near the local big city has enough people around at lunchtime to keep a cafe going.

[IsavedLatin]

My company announced last week that we were all to return to the office from Monday.

I'm a bit torn on this as I was getting extremely bored and a bit lonely working from home in this most recent period, to the extent that I was considering opting to go in for a day or two a week just to change things up. This was quite a marked change for me: earlier in the pandemic I'd been pretty convinced that we never needed to go back to the office again. But nevertheless I'm still being careful about Covid (vastly more careful than government guidance is telling us to be), and I don't want to be required to travel on public transport at peak times right now.

I'm also quite aware, perhaps even paranoid, about perception at the moment. As @flotemysost says, different people have different working styles and favour different environments -- but not every employer is going to respect that, or at the very least, may struggle to support a huge multiplicity of working styles. Will those not wanting to return to the office become (consciously or unconsciously) thought of as refuseniks, not team players, oddballs?