Insignificant/ Significant things that BYP or just wind you up a little

[Count Steer]

Call me old-fashioned, but I think my team work better in the office, collaboratively, with other teams, face to face.

Got any metrics?

[Count Steer]

If, five years ago, my colleagues were told that they could work from home one day a week, they'd have been cock-a-hoop. These days, ask them come in any more than once a week and they act like you've asked them for the fucking moon and stars.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think my team work better in the office, collaboratively, with other teams, face to face. My boss agrees, but then adds that because her role is 'different', she's only coming in one day a week, but she supports me in my efforts to get people back into the office. From home. Well that's fucking inspiring.

Ask HR for guidance (remotely, of course. They ain't coming in) and they simply state that they delegate it to the line managers to make that call, but repeat that management want people to be in the office 'the majority of the time'. That'll be me left holding that shitty stick then, trying to convince people to do something they don't want to do, at an additional cost and inconvenience, and basically saying, 'Well, why us and not everyone else?', for which I'm kinda stumped for any solid answer.

The only reason people will want to come into the office again is when they discover their job can be done by someone cheaper 100s of miles away.

(Or 1000s of miles). By which time the office will have been sold/not re-leased and it will be waaaay too late.

[JamJar]

If, five years ago, my colleagues were told that they could work from home one day a week, they'd have been cock-a-hoop. These days, ask them come in any more than once a week and they act like you've asked them for the fucking moon and stars.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think my team work better in the office, collaboratively, with other teams, face to face. My boss agrees, but then adds that because her role is 'different', she's only coming in one day a week, but she supports me in my efforts to get people back into the office. From home. Well that's fucking inspiring.

Ask HR for guidance (remotely, of course. They ain't coming in) and they simply state that they delegate it to the line managers to make that call, but repeat that management want people to be in the office 'the majority of the time'. That'll be me left holding that shitty stick then, trying to convince people to do something they don't want to do, at an additional cost and inconvenience, and basically saying, 'Well, why us and not everyone else?', for which I'm kinda stumped for any solid answer.

The only reason people will want to come into the office again is when they discover their job can be done by someone cheaper 100s of miles away.

(Or 1000s of miles). By which time the office will have been sold/not re-leased and it will be waaaay too late.

Companies have outsourced their work long before working from home became a thing, it is IMHO driven by corporate greed that they send the work offshore and nothing to do with whether people come into an office or not. You struggle to find any medium to large organisation that doesn't use the likes of Infosys or Cap Gemini to do the work that used to be domestic and the work is not done better, in my experience it is worse but it is so cheap that they company doesn't care about the fuck ups.

[Count Steer]

The only reason people will want to come into the office again is when they discover their job can be done by someone cheaper 100s of miles away.

(Or 1000s of miles). By which time the office will have been sold/not re-leased and it will be waaaay too late.

Companies have outsourced their work long before working from home became a thing, it is IMHO driven by corporate greed that they send the work offshore and nothing to do with whether people come into an office or not. You struggle to find any medium to large organisation that doesn't use the likes of Infosys or Cap Gemini to do the work that used to be domestic and the work is not done better, in my experience it is worse but it is so cheap that they company doesn't care about the fuck ups.

I wasn't really thinking of traditional outsource/off-shoring arrangements. We did a fair bit of on-shoring ie bringing stuff back after off-shoring (mainly to Bangalore) failed dismally.

If your project or programme manager can work from home in Surrey, they can as easily work from home in Skegness, Thessalonika, Durban or Dubrovnik....if they're good enough and the time zone thing works.

[Mr. Dazzle]

By which time the office will have been sold/not re-leased and it will be waaaay too late.

My wife's lot have gone full retard on it.

They say the whole company has to be in the office 2 days a week. They also have nothign like enough parking for the whole company, so they're paying loads to rent extra spaces. All in the name of collaboration.

Collaboration is fine, but Mrs. D doesn't need to collaborate with HR every day. Finance don't need to collaborate with IT every day. So now they pay rent for an office which is shut 3 days a week and buy loads of extra parking for the 2 days everyone is in, all in the name of collaboration.

[slowsider]

By which time the office will have been sold/not re-leased and it will be waaaay too late.

My wife's lot have gone full retard on it.

They say the whole company has to be in the office 2 days a week. They also have nothign like enough parking for the whole company, so they're paying loads to rent extra spaces. All in the name of collaboration.

Collaboration is fine, but Mrs. D doesn't need to collaborate with HR every day. Finance don't need to collaborate with IT every day. So now they pay rent for an office which is shut 3 days a week and buy loads of extra parking for the 2 days everyone is in, all in the name of collaboration.

The SAME 2 days???

[Mr. Dazzle]

The SAME 2 days???

Yes

[mangocrazy]

As I no longer 'have skin in the game' I'd say that both sides are right. You do collaborate better in the office. Nothing beats talking a short walk to a colleague's desk and discussing a problem with them (as well as interested onlookers/bystanders) and arriving at a solution/conclusion in short order. Trying to do that when WFH takes far longer and is far more difficult.

Having said that, I much preferred WFH in my final years in work. Except on Wednesdays. I'd come in then as the staff canteen always did a roast pork dinner with all the trimmings.

[Count Steer]

As I no longer 'have skin in the game' I'd say that both sides are right. You do collaborate better in the office. Nothing beats talking a short walk to a colleague's desk and discussing a problem with them (as well as interested onlookers/bystanders) and arriving at a solution/conclusion in short order. Trying to do that when WFH takes far longer and is far more difficult.

Having said that, I much preferred WFH in my final years in work. Except on Wednesdays. I'd come in then as the staff canteen always did a roast pork dinner with all the trimmings.

Things have changed a bit (although FI had started the trend for 'shopping bag coders' or, as they might have put it, 'leveraging the talent that has been lost to the traditional workplace'). I don't think a number of my projects would have got out of the starting blocks if we hadn't all been in the same room. (Ignoring the fact that the team couldn't have got access to the mainframe from outside the building and the email system was on it etc etc. A number of them would have been in the pub every hour they were open ).

[mangocrazy]

As I no longer 'have skin in the game' I'd say that both sides are right. You do collaborate better in the office. Nothing beats talking a short walk to a colleague's desk and discussing a problem with them (as well as interested onlookers/bystanders) and arriving at a solution/conclusion in short order. Trying to do that when WFH takes far longer and is far more difficult.

Having said that, I much preferred WFH in my final years in work. Except on Wednesdays. I'd come in then as the staff canteen always did a roast pork dinner with all the trimmings.

Things have changed a bit (although FI had started the trend for 'shopping bag coders' or, as they might have put it, 'leveraging the talent that has been lost to the traditional workplace'). I don't think a number of my projects would have got out of the starting blocks if we hadn't all been in the same room. (Ignoring the fact that the team couldn't have got access to the mainframe from outside the building and the email system was on it etc etc. A number of them would have been in the pub every hour they were open ).

I worked almost exclusively with mainframes from 1974 (when I started as a trainee computer operator) until 2020 with only a short time off working on AS/400 and Desktop publishing (remember that?) on PCs in the mid 80s. The Pub was where you went for lunch. It was The Law. And all the mainframers were co-located (in most companies, anyway) so things did actually get done.

In the morning, anyway...

[DefTrap]

If, five years ago, my colleagues were told that they could work from home one day a week, they'd have been cock-a-hoop. These days, ask them come in any more than once a week and they act like you've asked them for the fucking moon and stars.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think my team work better in the office, collaboratively, with other teams, face to face. My boss agrees, but then adds that because her role is 'different', she's only coming in one day a week, but she supports me in my efforts to get people back into the office. From home. Well that's fucking inspiring.

Ask HR for guidance (remotely, of course. They ain't coming in) and they simply state that they delegate it to the line managers to make that call, but repeat that management want people to be in the office 'the majority of the time'. That'll be me left holding that shitty stick then, trying to convince people to do something they don't want to do, at an additional cost and inconvenience, and basically saying, 'Well, why us and not everyone else?', for which I'm kinda stumped for any solid answer.

I'm cock-a-hoop that, finally, working from home (or outside of the traditional fixed office) is being taken seriously. The technology to support it has been with us for what feels like forever - what has been lacking is for the majority to take it seriously as an option and not automatically dial in a level of mistrust. So for me COVID has been a great leveller - everyone now knows how WFH can be done effectively and there's a lot of evidence to show it works better. I don't have to dial into meetings where most are around the same meeting-room table, drifting in and out of the room for coffees and snacks and gossiping or mumbling into the only mic. from 10 yards away so that you can't hear properly what's going on.

IMO if you have a problem working from home, you're just a bit shit at it. I genuinely see no benefit. Can't collaborate? Of course you can

Long may it continue - screw the office, their shitty coffee and either too hot, cold, noisy or otherwise unbearable office-vanilla working conditions. Spare me getting everyone's sodding cold. Spare me my physical presence meaning I'm actually available or interruptible, when I'm doing something else, without me having to lock myself in a meeting room.

[cheb]

All my jobs need me to be there in person, self driving vehicles are a long way off, guarding the coast needs proper human eyeballs close up, I'm there for when the turbine can't be dealt with remotely and artists need something to look at when they art.

:smug:

Surprisingly nothing bmp today, I must be mellowing.

[MrLongbeard]

As I no longer 'have skin in the game' I'd say that both sides are right. You do collaborate better in the office. Nothing beats talking a short walk to a colleague's desk and discussing a problem with them (as well as interested onlookers/bystanders) and arriving at a solution/conclusion in short order. Trying to do that when WFH takes far longer and is far more difficult.

Yeah, I do miss some of the discussions / disagreements the boss and I had, but we generally have to loop global labs in on decisions anyway so it don't not cost us any extra time or aggravation.

I do not miss every tom dick n harry thinking they have a valid opinion and trying to lay their tuppence worth in on every discussion and dragging every 2 minute pow wow into a 20 minute circle jerk.
I also don't give a flying fig who saw who at the weekend let alone what they watched on telly the night before

[Mussels]

(Or 1000s of miles). By which time the office will have been sold/not re-leased and it will be waaaay too late.

Companies have outsourced their work long before working from home became a thing, it is IMHO driven by corporate greed that they send the work offshore and nothing to do with whether people come into an office or not. You struggle to find any medium to large organisation that doesn't use the likes of Infosys or Cap Gemini to do the work that used to be domestic and the work is not done better, in my experience it is worse but it is so cheap that they company doesn't care about the fuck ups.

I wasn't really thinking of traditional outsource/off-shoring arrangements. We did a fair bit of on-shoring ie bringing stuff back after off-shoring (mainly to Bangalore) failed dismally.

If your project or programme manager can work from home in Surrey, they can as easily work from home in Skegness, Thessalonika, Durban or Dubrovnik....if they're good enough and the time zone thing works.

In lockdown we took on a tech up north somewhere, he can get a train down when needed but it's not often.
I'm trying to make a point of going in once a week to collaborate with people, it isn't essential but I want my boss to think it is.

[mangocrazy]

I'm cock-a-hoop that, finally, working from home (or outside of the traditional fixed office) is being taken seriously. The technology to support it has been with us for what feels like forever - what has been lacking is for the majority to take it seriously as an option and not automatically dial in a level of mistrust. So for me COVID has been a great leveller - everyone now knows how WFH can be done effectively and there's a lot of evidence to show it works better. I don't have to dial into meetings where most are around the same meeting-room table, drifting in and out of the room for coffees and snacks and gossiping or mumbling into the only mic. from 10 yards away so that you can't hear properly what's going on.

IMO if you have a problem working from home, you're just a bit shit at it. I genuinely see no benefit. Can't collaborate? Of course you can

Long may it continue - screw the office, their shitty coffee and either too hot, cold, noisy or otherwise unbearable office-vanilla working conditions. Spare me getting everyone's sodding cold. Spare me my physical presence meaning I'm actually available or interruptible, when I'm doing something else, without me having to lock myself in a meeting room.

I much preferred WFH and did it as much as I could get away with. But to try and make out it's the perfect solution is simply incorrect.

Screw the office, their shitty coffee and either too hot, cold, noisy or otherwise unbearable office-vanilla working conditions.

Completely agree.

Spare me getting everyone's sodding cold.

Absolutely - one of my pet peeves.

Spare me my physical presence meaning I'm actually available or interruptible, when I'm doing something else, without me having to lock myself in a meeting room.

That's fine for you, but in making yourself unavailable you are undoubtedly screwing up someone else's working day. As an example, I used to have to chase approvers for my IT changes and there would always be a hard core of approvers who were totally uncontactable and didn't have a deputy or colleagu who could fill in. They were the bane of my fucking life (and of the department in general).

And you can collaborate via Zoom or Teams or email or Instant messaging, but it simply does not work as well as F2F contact.

[Count Steer]

There's a chap that works for the FT that relocated to Paris and didn't tell them.

I think he just got the train over on occasion, pitched up to a meeting or two then went home. Kind of gave the game away when he wrote an article about it though.

[mangocrazy]

There's a chap that works for the FT that relocated to Paris and didn't tell them.

I think he just got the train over on occasion, pitched up to a meeting or two then went home. Kind of gave the game away when he wrote an article about it though.

I made countless requests to be allowed to work for the odd day or week from my gaff in France - always got turned down flat.

So I just went ahead and did it anyway. No-one knew and I just kept schtum.

Now I've retired I think I might spill the beans...

[cheb]

I wonder how many people have managed to have two, or more, proper full time employed jobs without getting found out by one of their employers.

[DefTrap]

That's fine for you, but in making yourself unavailable you are undoubtedly screwing up someone else's working day. As an example, I used to have to chase approvers for my IT changes and there would always be a hard core of approvers who were totally uncontactable and didn't have a deputy or colleagu who could fill in. They were the bane of my fucking life (and of the department in general).

I agree it's not for all. But then it also seems to expose the tw@ts who have to be babied to get things done, or who are systemic abusers of any process they can get away with. Sod having to manage folk who won't be managed.

And you can collaborate via Zoom or Teams or email or Instant messaging, but it simply does not work as well as F2F contact.

The only part of that I agree with is that some people use it to 'hide' (camera off, doing something else) but then, as before, these are probably the ones who normally contribute very little anyway - if having to have them physically next to you is necessary to coax a contribution out of them, they're the wrong guy to be working with anyway.

[gremlin]

If there weren't tax implications to working abroad before Brexit, I bet a pound to a pinch of dried squirrel shit there is now.

My HR dept. can barely fucking work out how PAYE works, let alone forrin lands coming into it. They'd shit a diverse and inclusive rainbow flag turd the size of a fucking house at the mere thought....