Working From Home Megathread

I'm not getting this. Why would you not just pick up a phone or use whatever IM ye use rather than succumbing to Zoom? While there are possibly too many Zooms, the office experience for me used to be a case of "well, we're all here, so let's have a regular meeting" even when there was absolutely no need. Inevitably it'd drift off topic. That seems to happen less in zooms because everyone wants them to finish!

That’s stretching it a bit, you must be afraid to go outside your door then.

If you are concerned that by going into work, you could pass on Covid to your parents, miss the birth of a child or visit a parent, how do you survive outside your room? There are many, many advantages of wfh which should be taken advantage of, but being worried about the aforementioned when discussing office work considering our society is now completely open and maskless, seems, well, odd.

And that's what it's like when you have a memory of what it used to be like.

Imagine starting at a new company where you know no one, and it's primarily WFH,with colleagues just being disembodied voices on the phone. Disengaged doesn't even begin to describe it.

Its not that I don’t see the difference, it’s that if you are that worried about passing it on, how do you function in a society where there are huge numbers of Covid infections daily?

I think it’s crap to use ur excuse of catching Covid as a reason for staying out of the office nowadays, and if you are worried about catching it there, then interacting normally with people outside the office must be frightening.

And once again, if you are worried about catching Covid in your office, how the hell do you go about your daily life? Do you worry about catching it from family members, door handles, utensils etc, any surface that another person could touch or sneeze on. I understand that degree of paranoia pre-vaccine/omicrone, but using fears of passing it to your compromised parents as a “reason” for not going to an office either makes you ill informed of the risks a spread all around you, paranoid, or just using it as a excuse.

As I said, there are many benefits to wfh which people should be focused on, if one of them is Covid, then you are a pity.

I wasn't trying to rehash the pro/anti WFH arguments. TBH, they've been done to death here (and elsewhere). I was wondering if peoples attitudes to WFH have changed - in either direction?

I was a huge advocate for WFH but find I am changing my mind. I do think, though, that it is most likely the company/work.

Am that soldier.

It's been grand. Really.

Weird, sure, compared to "normal", but these aren't normal times. Day 1, met someone from HR, met my boss, a couple of others in the business unit, and a couple of others in the building when I was given the grand tour. Feck all people around. I've been working two days a week in the office since, 3 from home, and I think it took me a month before I'd met everyone on my team in person, but I'd met them all over Zoom in the first couple of days.

Likewise, Zoom for anyone else I needed to chat with has been the order of the day. As someone who's shite with remembering names and faces, it's been great mostly "meeting" over Zoom, where there name is right there in front of their face. The only downside is a slight one, not having regular or spontaneous social things after work, which I think is where you really get to know people, but that's far outstripped by the positives - far fewer timewasting chats on a Monday about that local sports team/English premiership, fewer pointless meetings that drift off topic, no commute 60% of the time.

These calls are supposed to take the place of face to face meetings, having your camera on shows you are engaging with the call (like you would in person) rather than not paying attention or doing something else. If you are in a face to face meeting and you arent speaking you dont step behind a screen to hide yourself why would you on a video conference?

Seriously? In the before times, every office had the martyr. "It's only a headcold, nothing to worry about, I'm too busy to take a - achoo! - a sick day." Three days later, half the office is off sick. I've a relative who caught covid right back at the start from exactly that, someone coming back into the office straight from holidays, coughing and spluttering. Gave covid to half the office. But it was "only a cold."

Working from home when I'm sick is my choice and I'd never expect it from a staff member. But if all I have symptom-wise is headcold symptoms and a sore throat, and am feeling well enough to work, why wouldn't I? Yes, I'll be slower than normal and might take more/longer breaks, but what's the alternative - I can't go out if I'm sick, and there's only so many box sets you can watch. Keeping on top of things means I don't have a huge pile of work waiting for me when I get back.

The Netherlands is on the cusp of becoming the world's first country to make work from home a legal right. 

Bloomberg reports the remote working bill received approval by the lower house of the bicameral parliament on Tuesday. The proposal is waiting for a stamp of approval from the Dutch senate before its law. 

Current Dutch law states employers may reject workers' requests for remote work without reason. The new proposal fixes that and forces employers to give a reason for denial.