Work From Home (WFH) Thread

[Majingir]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Follow up from my "grind my gears" post last week about WFH (post was about having to be in person for work that was supposed to be done at home)..

Getting the opportunity to do so is great. I think 5 days a week might be a bit much depending on the job, as you don't feel a real connection to the company/employees you're working with, but a mix is nice.

My next few weeks are lined up where I have a great mix of it, and no more than 2 or 3 days in a row being in person.

Work is work, but doing some of it at home is a nice break. A change of scenery and schedule makes you more productive and the week flies by way faster since it feels almost like a break in between actual in person work.

Is my TV gonna be on? Yes.
Am I waking up late? Yes.
Am I gonna be working the entire 8 hours? No
Will I get everything done that I need to get done in just as good if not better quality than if I was in person? Yes

In the end, isn't that last point all that matters?

[pietasterp]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

My informal tally of opinions is that a hybrid arrangement is the one that most people feel is a reasonable balance. Some # of days/week in the office - depending on what type of company you work for, how large it is, etc. - is useful and can be stimulating in its own way. But a hard 5 days/week makes less and less sense I think, if it ever even did (again, depending on your line of work, how big the company is, structure of your job, etc.).

I think the only real consensus is that different jobs and setups have different 'ideal' work arrangements. I think there is now broad acknowledgement that what works for one company does not necessarily work for another.

Genius insight, I know. I'll see myself out...

[Jolly Roger]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

What I find intriguing is the freedom of mobility remote work gives you. I'm moving out West early next year but will continue working my current job. I considered doing a little excursion to the UK for a few months and realized that would actually be possible. There are some people who just travel around the world while they work remotely.

It does create some inequality between people who have remote jobs and those who don't, but if the latter really want a remote job they could get one. Just depends on if it's something you really want.

[KSUowls]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I personally find the push to get people back in the office (as headlined by a few CEOs) is just insane. It's been said many times here already, but I am more convinced of this than ever after 2 & 1/2 years now of WFH. There is no reason for me to ever step foot in an office again. My job, my career as a financial analyst, can be done with 100% efficiency at home, and I have lost virtually nothing by not seeing my colleagues every day. I will admit that some form of a hybrid system would completely eliminate any remaining deficiencies in the WFH setup, but most hybrid situations that I have come across in talking with recruiters is like 3-4 days a week in the office when 1 day a week, or even 1 day a month would honestly be sufficient in a lot of cases. This obviously isn't the case for every discipline, but I would imagine that it's the case for most cost center/support style roles.

The downside to all of this I remember was mentioned earlier in this thread. Since it's been proven that many companies don't need people in a physical office, they are now looking to see if they need domestic workers at all. There have been some departments that were offshored over the last year that I honestly did not believe would get that treatment. To a degree I can understand it, as they are not as customer facing, but they still provide some critical support that there is now a time & language barrier to (they speak english, but it is a second language). It's probably only a matter of time before they decide that a position like mine, which is still a support role, but more customer (internal) facing, is worth losing some of the direct efficiencies to save on salary.

[pietasterp]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

The downside to all of this I remember was mentioned earlier in this thread. Since it's been proven that many companies don't need people in a physical office, they are now looking to see if they need domestic workers at all. There have been some departments that were offshored over the last year that I honestly did not believe would get that treatment. To a degree I can understand it, as they are not as customer facing, but they still provide some critical support that there is now a time & language barrier to (they speak english, but it is a second language). It's probably only a matter of time before they decide that a position like mine, which is still a support role, but more customer (internal) facing, is worth losing some of the direct efficiencies to save on salary.

Yep, I think this is the part that concerns me most about the vehemently pro work-from-home movement. My experience is that the larger the corporation, the less they care about anything other than cutting expenses.

I've learned to never assume that any position/group/function cannot be outsourced. They all can and will be. End user experience, efficiency, language barrier, time barrier - none of that matters to the C-suite at most companies. They simply don't care, if they can save 10-15% on salary by offshoring your job.

Never underestimate how little your employer cares about you, when push comes to shove...

[slickdtc]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Yep, I think this is the part that concerns me most about the vehemently pro work-from-home movement. My experience is that the larger the corporation, the less they care about anything other than cutting expenses.



I've learned to never assume that any position/group/function cannot be outsourced. They all can and will be. End user experience, efficiency, language barrier, time barrier - none of that matters to the C-suite at most companies. They simply don't care, if they can save 10-15% on salary by offshoring your job.



Never underestimate how little your employer cares about you, when push comes to shove...

Just a matter of time for large corporations. Best bet is to find the sweet spot of a company that can pay you competitively while also not being so large that you become just a number.

It was nuts talking to one of my friends who said he’s done literally nothing at his job for months (financial sector). People got lost in remote work, pandemic, and I don’t know what. My other buddy & I just turned to each other. If either of us misses a day, the fires we have to put out... let alone for weeks and months on end.

Having a few months off, essentially, is really cool. But I’ll gladly actually work and know I’m valuable enough to keep around.

My WFH arrangement is do it as needed. My son just started grade school and they have so many non-holidays (and some religious holidays beyond the typical ones) off of school, it’s quite comforting to be able to work from home those days instead of burning a vacation day or having to figure out schedules. This is my preferred WFH/office schedule. No hard day in/day out office quotas, just be here if you need to be and get your work done however it needs to be done.

[p_rushing]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Yep, I think this is the part that concerns me most about the vehemently pro work-from-home movement. My experience is that the larger the corporation, the less they care about anything other than cutting expenses.



I've learned to never assume that any position/group/function cannot be outsourced. They all can and will be. End user experience, efficiency, language barrier, time barrier - none of that matters to the C-suite at most companies. They simply don't care, if they can save 10-15% on salary by offshoring your job.



Never underestimate how little your employer cares about you, when push comes to shove...

The good thing right now is a lot of companies have tried this in the past and failed. It depends on the area of the company but they have found out that it just doesn't work for certain types of work. You also need to document everything in order to send something over and it get coded/done correctly.

Anything that requires someone to think on their own generally just does not work offshoring it. There is a reason they get paid so little. Not saying bottom US workers could do any better but generally you have people who can do some level of problem solving.

The data security requirements are also helping where you have to be physically located in the US or other countries and the data cannot level that country.

I've been seeing contracts signed that in the past would have fully offshore except for 2-3 people to interface with the client directly. On a large one right now with no offshore and I'm shocked that they don't seem to even want to move some development there.

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

[LowerWolf]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

When I left my job last spring, upper management decided to outsource my position. According to my former manager, that has been a disaster; they're now trying to hire someone locally to replace me.

[BurghFan]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

My job is full-time remote/work-from-home as the "office" is 220 miles away from my apartment and I've never actually benn on-site (though I have been to the town where it's located as my aunt and uncle lived there for about 5 years when they first got married back in the mid/late 80's). My department has no need to be on-site as all of our work can be done remotely through VPN. Some people do work on site but many are scattered throughout different parts of the country. We use MS Teams and SharePoint to collaborate with co-workers and have our meetings on Teams. I've been told that before the pandemic they would bring everyone in to the office/lab site for a company picnic every summer, but haven't heard anything about when that might happen again. It is nice not having to deal with people or weather during a commute and being able to get other stuff done during the day and being the hyper-introvert I am, I don't really mind being alone. Only issues have been occasional issues with the VPN going down or my internet going out.

[ODogg]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Yep, I think this is the part that concerns me most about the vehemently pro work-from-home movement. My experience is that the larger the corporation, the less they care about anything other than cutting expenses.

I've learned to never assume that any position/group/function cannot be outsourced. They all can and will be. End user experience, efficiency, language barrier, time barrier - none of that matters to the C-suite at most companies. They simply don't care, if they can save 10-15% on salary by offshoring your job.

Never underestimate how little your employer cares about you, when push comes to shove...

As someone with 25 years in telecommunications and many of them as a contractor, I can safely say...you're 100% right.

A little known fact amongst a lot of employees is that your manager, you know the one who loves you, has no input, or very little input, on whether if there are layoffs your name is on that list.

It's funny though that most people don't realize this reality. I work at a company with a guy who has been here for 11 years and he was the sole engineer for the state of Ohio.

He is always talking about "his Ohio network" and saying things like "what are you doing to my network" and he acts as if he is 100% untouchable because of his seniority.

I have told him time and time again that these large companies make decisions about layoffs based almost entirely on money, the more you make of it, at least at the lower levels of production, the bigger the target that you are.

And a company that's a large company will cut off its nose to spite its face as they say. When I was laid off from Qwest in 2002 I was the only person in our group of 20 that knew both narrowband and broadband and I also knew circuit design, something only a couple of the team knew how to do.

My boss told me no way would he let me get laid off and I 100% believed him because I was one of the best people there in terms of production.

Then I got the Friday morning call in and he apologized but said I was laid off.

I said, what? Why?

He said, simple, you make $70,000 a year and our recent hires from Ohio State all are coming in at $33,000 a year so Qwest is going to hire 2 of them to replace you I guess.

He didn't like it, he knew that having 2 people is not always better than 1 who knows what he or she is doing, but he had no say in it because...it was simple economics.

It's sort of funny but I did so well and got so many raises, learned so many new skills, that I basically priced myself out of my own job.

Corporations have no loyalty to low level workers. Know that and keep that in mind when you get a better job offer and your knee jerk reaction is to be loyal to your company and not take it. Not saying that you should, but the reason to stay should not be loyalty, they will have none for you if the time for the cut down comes.

[Speedy]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Yep, I think this is the part that concerns me most about the vehemently pro work-from-home movement. My experience is that the larger the corporation, the less they care about anything other than cutting expenses.

I've learned to never assume that any position/group/function cannot be outsourced. They all can and will be. End user experience, efficiency, language barrier, time barrier - none of that matters to the C-suite at most companies. They simply don't care, if they can save 10-15% on salary by offshoring your job.

Never underestimate how little your employer cares about you, when push comes to shove...

100% agreed

[Smallville102001]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I have had a hard time I mean a really hard time finding a job. I get tired of people saying everyone is looking for people. No they are not. Like 80% of jobs out there don't want to train people any more and expect you to have a 4 year degree and lots of experience. Has a result I have been stuck in major depression for years.

I have thought about maybe trying to see about remote jobs just because it's more jobs and would be nice to save a hour or so of the day driving to work and home and also the gas money you save. What I worry about with remote jobs you see posted is are most of them just scams or are they real?

[Jr.]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I have had a hard time I mean a really hard time finding a job. I get tired of people saying everyone is looking for people. No they are not. Like 80% of jobs out there don't want to train people any more and expect you to have a 4 year degree and lots of experience. Has a result I have been stuck in major depression for years.

I have thought about maybe trying to see about remote jobs just because it's more jobs and would be nice to save a hour or so of the day driving to work and home and also the gas money you save. What I worry about with remote jobs you see posted is are most of them just scams or are they real?

Be a HS sports official. They make pretty good money, and you can work as much or as little as you want

Sent from my SM-G970U using Operation Sports mobile app

[KSUowls]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

How do you guys able to deal with all the distractions when working from home? All those kids, TVs , chips etc. I work from home only 2 days a week but always find myself doing something not work related

I don't have any kids so that does help. The way that I look at it though is that there is always some built in down time to any job. The difference is that when I was in an office I would spend that time browsing ESPN or getting up to walk around and stretch my legs. Now that time is spent with some quick playtime with my dog or throwing some dirty clothes into the the laundry. Just have to view those "home responsibilities" as a transfer of tasks like that. Though again, young kids may create an extra challenge.

[Majingir]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

How do you guys able to deal with all the distractions when working from home? All those kids, TVs , chips etc. I work from home only 2 days a week but always find myself doing something not work related

Depends on who or what is around I guess.

For me, the rare times I'm able to work from home I love it. I might just have the TV or spotify on as background noise, but not hard to focus or just roam around the house randomly to take a break.

If others are around, can't imagine what that would be like though. If you're able to isolate yourself where nobody's coming near you or you can't hear anyone from where you're working, that's probably best tip for working from home.