Working from home. I didn’t realize until the pandemic how energy draining the office really is. Once I started working from home I found out quickly that I had energy to spare for evening activities - while also being more productive at work.
Commuting through traffic stresses me out. I didn’t realize how much it was stressing me out until I stopped the routine. I realized I was coming home every day stressed and irritable from it, making my free time after work less enjoyable. WFH changed all of that for the better.
I switched jobs 2 years ago. It was mainly because of Return To Office, but really because the incapable git - installed as manager by the incapable fuckwit installed as CIO by the meddling narcissist CFO who organized a coup to depose the former I.T command chain who kept saying no to things like kicking I.T out of the fancier newer offices and gutting security budget and capital expense for HA projects, really really - really was a harbinger of shitty things to come. RTO to a dank, funky, hot, bright, loud, cramped sexist* hell was a great motivator to quit, but the underlying cause was the outlook when seeing this keystone kops management in action.
So yeah, switched to a company that went from 100% WFO to 100% WFH on CoViD Day 1 with no clue how, but a desire for business continuity, so it coped and adapted, and then sold off the office space. I’m on a gov pension plan as a mere Senior flunky in a contract house, I know some great people from past gigs and respect them, and my boss is gonna retire at the top of her career in about 3 years. The workload is easy but dumb, and that’s entirely okay: I have this gorgeous river view from my fancy lifty desk and aeron ass-cradle, I haven’t driven a car in about 2 years - and I learned on a 71 beetle in the '80s, so driving is my jam - because everything is walkable, and “going on a walk” is absolutely acceptable in my day job. We do Teams a lot. We do Cameras VERY rarely, and usually by accident.
Oh. Surveillance. They gave me a laptop to use. I bought the KVM switch. Don’t use it for dumb stuff. Also I put Google Locate on my phone and shared to my peers. That’s it.
Find a good remote-first place to WFH at. Then move to a great neighbourhood. Have a great life.
Edit: missed the * reference. In the UK, open-plan offices are now considered sexist because they consistently disadvantage a protected half of the population. Be grateful if your office workplace is only “60% sexist” and, for fun, see if you can get HR to promote that detail on job descriptions. ;-)
Working from home. I didn’t realize until the pandemic how energy draining the office really is. Once I started working from home I found out quickly that I had energy to spare for evening activities - while also being more productive at work.
Just saving the commute time alone is a game changer. I get to spend much more time with my daughter as I work from home.
Saving time and money. I sold my car in 2020 and saved thousands of euros. It’s unbelievable how much money owning a car costs you.
Commuting through traffic stresses me out. I didn’t realize how much it was stressing me out until I stopped the routine. I realized I was coming home every day stressed and irritable from it, making my free time after work less enjoyable. WFH changed all of that for the better.
1000%.
My company is slowly pulling back work from home. So I’m looking for another job.
I’ll never go back, simple as that.
I switched jobs 2 years ago. It was mainly because of Return To Office, but really because the incapable git - installed as manager by the incapable fuckwit installed as CIO by the meddling narcissist CFO who organized a coup to depose the former I.T command chain who kept saying no to things like kicking I.T out of the fancier newer offices and gutting security budget and capital expense for HA projects, really really - really was a harbinger of shitty things to come. RTO to a dank, funky, hot, bright, loud, cramped sexist* hell was a great motivator to quit, but the underlying cause was the outlook when seeing this keystone kops management in action.
So yeah, switched to a company that went from 100% WFO to 100% WFH on CoViD Day 1 with no clue how, but a desire for business continuity, so it coped and adapted, and then sold off the office space. I’m on a gov pension plan as a mere Senior flunky in a contract house, I know some great people from past gigs and respect them, and my boss is gonna retire at the top of her career in about 3 years. The workload is easy but dumb, and that’s entirely okay: I have this gorgeous river view from my fancy lifty desk and aeron ass-cradle, I haven’t driven a car in about 2 years - and I learned on a 71 beetle in the '80s, so driving is my jam - because everything is walkable, and “going on a walk” is absolutely acceptable in my day job. We do Teams a lot. We do Cameras VERY rarely, and usually by accident.
Oh. Surveillance. They gave me a laptop to use. I bought the KVM switch. Don’t use it for dumb stuff. Also I put Google Locate on my phone and shared to my peers. That’s it.
Find a good remote-first place to WFH at. Then move to a great neighbourhood. Have a great life.
Edit: missed the * reference. In the UK, open-plan offices are now considered sexist because they consistently disadvantage a protected half of the population. Be grateful if your office workplace is only “60% sexist” and, for fun, see if you can get HR to promote that detail on job descriptions. ;-)