Work From Home - So popular, it's now an acronym

General Gibberish Forums
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Love it, or hate it, WFH is here to stay. Is it a good thing? A bad thing? Does it help us by allowing us to integrate home life in our work day, and save us money and time on travel? Or does it blur the lines between work and home life, so we never really get away from work?

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Those are not mutually exclusive propositions, obviously

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I read an interesting article today about how about how the average work day has been extended due to WFH changes. Meetings have increased by 250% during the pandemic, and we need to be smarter about what should be a meeting, and what shouldn’t if we want to regain some lost productivity

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/triple-peak-day-work-from-home/629457/?utm_medium=10today.us.tue.rd.20220405.436.1&utm_source=email&utm_content=article&utm_campaign=10fortoday4.0styling

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person dependent, ive noticed some parents hate their kids and use them as an excuse to work in the office, others love being able to be part of their life more (school drop offs/pickups/homework)

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Wouldn’t discount that a huge part of that is managers setting arbitrary meetings to make sure their reports aren’t away from their desks for more than 5 minutes

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how ■■■■■■■ ■■■■ are the general manager pool to not come out of covid with higher productivity?

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From the article I linked:

“Our late-night mini workdays are not just an expression of benign flexibility. They’re also the consequence of inflexible managers filling the day with so many meetings that we have to add a “worknight” to do our job.”

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think about the biggest challenges facing us at the moment.

Covid (yes, it’s still a thing)
Russia Ukraine war
Fuel Costs
Natural Disasters smashing the top end due to Environment.

Allowing people to continue to work from home when they are able actually really helps 3 of those 4 things.

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A pet peeve of mine now though, is full time workers who can’t POSSIBLY work five days in the office anymore because of x y z. How would you have managed it if covid never happened?

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You forgot:

  • Essendon winning its next Premiership

That’s also a pretty big challenge.

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And if I’m not on Blitz every waking moment arguing with strangers why we should pick up DFA Player X who we could turn into a big bodied mid and it’s all Dodoro’s fault, how the hell are we going to win our next flag? How, @Glu?

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What’s that got to do whether I WFH or not?

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It’s easier to be on Blitz from home than the office? Solving Essendon’s problems in here might help us win a flag?

I admit, it’s a tenuous link…

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I get to spend more time on Blitz, therefore, we get closer to winning a flag. Keep up, CB

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Yeah nah, I get it. It’s just not my experience, having a job that generally allows me to waste just as much time regardless of where I do it from.

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who am I kidding, I’m still on Blitz in the office.

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It all depends, on the job itself and the person doing it. Some jobs just can’t be done to the same level from home, but some can be done just as well (or better) from home. That it’s now an option, is a very good thing in my view.

I’ve been freelancing from home for about a year now, and it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done; while still being able to take my daughter to school, be very involved in her school life and cook dinner.

My current contract is about to run out, and it’s looking like I’ll have to get a full-time job again, but as I look over the job ads, the thought of commuting 5 days a week to do a job I know for a fact I can do from home, is not very appealing.

Those that list ‘flexible’ arrangements on the job, are the ones I’m steering towards.

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I think it’s really important to set boundaries so that work and home don’t blur.

I know it’s not possible for everyone, but having a dedicated work area that isn’t where you spend your leisure time really helps to mentally shut off at the end of the day. I have email & slack apps on my phone. I don’t have notifications on for email and for slack notifications are only between 8am and 6pm Mon-Fri. I never check email or slack after I’ve logged off for the day unless I need to chat to someone in the US when they come online.

My boss doesn’t check on me and I don’t check on my staff. I worry what sort of manager doesn’t trust their staff or can’t tell when they are extracting the p1ss and not doing their work. I care about output not hours at your desk.

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hypercontrolling micro-managers

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Of course, some managers only know how to micromanage. Also, some workers will choose to do school drop-offs and pick-ups, have family time around dinner, then make up for that missed work by working later.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but can be more stressful than a shorter period of work, depending on the person.