The resistance to allowing WFH really shows how bullshit the push for EVs "to help the environment" is.
I'm not anti-EV and do believe they are better than ICE. But even better than an EV-driven mile is a mile that isn't driven at all.
I'm not sure how you equate that first paragraph at all. Can you expound? The second one just nullifies the first lol.
It's not bullshit at all. It is a lot better for cars that are being used to not shoot out smoke from combusting refined oil. There will always be cars in use, so it will always be better for them to not shoot out smoke.
It's not possible for all workers to live inside dense cities and use public transport and work in offices or at home. MANY other jobs are out there and still need doing every day. Everyone who physically maintains all of our critical infrastructure, manufacturing, and food supply industries is pretty much going to commute to work one way or another. Millions of those people don't live in cities with public transport and/or don't work where public transport can take them to. EVs are an improvement for all of those necessary use cases, because the vehicles they need could not be shooting out smoke.
I'm not sure what percentage of workers could do their job from home if they were allowed to. It's probably a small minority, though a quick glance of numbers from COVID would suggest 15-20%. I'll use 15% for sake of argument but would welcome a more "confident" number if someone has it.
Reducing the number of miles is and important way to reduce impact. Additionally, even those who cannot work from home benefit from reduces congestion and reduces vehicle idling. Although idling has less impact on EVs (though they still have to run HVAC), ICE vehicles are still the majority of vehicles being sold today in most nations and will be in circulation for decades.
Not everyone can WFH, but it needs to be part of the strategy of reducing emissions from transportation. Not pushing WFH (for those who can) is leaving a lot on the table. This is not a replacement for EVs, rather in addition to.
None of my coworkers drive to the office and we actually like seeing each other.... Hybrid remote work is great for us
I think 90% of the problem is people being forced to drive everywhere
Traffic would be so much better with a staggered work force. We might actually enjoy the commute.
Or if they actually cared, they could build trains.
Because of traffic, the workforce started staggering by themselves here if possible. The result was that bad traffic was spread out over the entire day instead of just two peaks in the morning and evening. Good traffic is only at night and working at night defeats the purpose of having business hours.
Another factor is the spaces that offices take up or the power used whilst unoccupied, these space could be used for housing or maybe even industry.
Its great that no one drives to your work but this is more uncommon than common.
In conclusion: work from home is better.
Don't forget giant slammed parking lots! :D
Some companies are doing it to create a hostile workplace to increase attrition. If an employee quits, they don't have to pay unemployment or severance. Other companies have huge investments in corporate real estate. They have been sitting on short-term loans that are coming due. The property owners are keeping their real-estate values artificially high, but to one wants to rent/lease them, so they aren't as valuable as in practice as they look on paper. Some companies get tax breaks from cities to put their offices there and will not continue to reap those rewards if their workers are not coming into the city. Don't let them gaslight you about culture or face time because that has all been debunked. A lot of remote workers are coming in to the office and sitting on Zoom/Teams calls in their cubicles.
Well, having the office was nice because I like my colleagues. I'm lucky in that regard though, and as nice as it was to socialise at work, working from home is nicer. Not to mention much much cheaper by every metric. In conclusion fuck ever going back to the office, thank you for coming to my TEDx Talk.
I personally like it too, but not daily. I average 1-2 days in office now and it's healthy for me. See my coworkers, they know my name, we catch up, have our meetings, then I go home for a few days again. I've just learned everyone is different, and the company definitely shouldn't be telling people how to work, people are grownups and can decide themselves. (And if they can't, then fire them instead of punishing everyone).
However for this meme, another great way to get people off the roads would be....... trains
Working from home reduces emission much faster than electric cars.
Working from home is also considerably safer. The most dangerous part of most people's work day is their drive to and from work. If that time had to be covered by workplace injury insurance, management would be begging for as many people as possible to stay home just to keep insurance costs down.
Yeah it really doesn't help when everyone is driving worn out, pissed off, and/or fearing of retribution from being late due to things out of their control, like traffic, accidents, and sudden construction.
I have terrible time-blindness, so I'd frequently be one of those stressed out trying to make my commute. More often than not, I'd make it to the clock within 5 minutes or less!
There was a few times I felt pushed to make a risky turn where you're allowed to go but yield to oncoming traffic (who were also speeding to not get yelled at or fired, surely!)..., so I could clock in on time...then I thought...
"I refuse to die on my way to work. That would be so pathetically stupid."
Thankfully I quit when they wanted to get on people for being literally sixty seconds late.
Their answer is always "Just leave earlier?" If they had it their way you'd just be wasting hours of your life unpaid in the parking lot just for them. As if they're remotely worth it.
How many deaths are caused by a ridiculous obsession with punitive punctuality, which is hampered by forced office commute traffic, which encourages panicked angry driving?
I too, miss "covid traffic." Roads actually made sense then...
agree
True
People going on about how much electric cars suck are usually shocked when I agree with them... And moreso when I point out that they suck because they're still cars, and that's not a conversation the anti-EV crowd is ready to have.
Also, goes into the old "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra which it seems nobody understands is ordered that way intentionally as that's the order they should be implemented. Reducing usage is by far the most effective tactic for positive environmental impact or environmental harm reduction.
They just get to "recycle" and see that they can change pretty much nothing more than putting trash in a different bin and figure that's all they need to do. Even though it's a really poor overall impact.
If unions and OSHA really had teeth, they'd point out the significant health risks of having workers commute to work versus work from home. In terms of lives saved, work from home is much safer and we should fine companies accordingly when they force workers to commute when instead they could simply work from home. They should also be fined for environmental impact as well :)
2802 - 7006 lives saved every year if wfh was allowed partially or all the way.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/remote-work-literally-saves-lives-peter-watridge
But the company culture.
The culture:
those first 3 months or so of covid were bliss. every office drone was off the road. it was so fucking easy to get everywhere, and it was quick too
It was mostly quicker on my pushbike too. I wasnt having to keep swerving and braking for idiots. Though I did get chased 3 times, by special kinds of idiots (one in a dinosaur suit ffs).
I'd be fine with going into the office if public transportation could get me there, but it's a 15 minute drive vs 1.5 hours on the bus. And when I go into the office I just put in headphones with a YouTube documentary and don't talk to anyone. What's the point?
Meanwhile, my lead, who insists I drive 40km which takes 70 minutes one way:
"I can't do teams meetings for design discussions, I don't like drawing with my mouse"
Me: "OK, get a Wacom tablet or wtv and draw with that?"
Him: "No, just come to the office" for our 5 min talks we have occasionally and the once every two weeks 1 hr discussion
If only they could somehow have a webcam point at their desk to show you what they're drawing
😂
There's like a $10 app called super display that will turn any android device into a touch monitor, pair that with one of those precision styluses with the plastic disc on the end, you got a ~$20 dollar drawing tablet!
I read this has: " I have an irrational need to be in the same room as you, here is a plausible excuse to justify it"
Then you replied with: "here is a reasonable solution to the excuse you gave me so that we can all work better"
And then it went down hill.
Unnecessary RTO should be outlawed
The worst part of it is most big companies are forcing RTO to either justify the leases they don't want to pay to break, or to satisfy tax incentives agreements they made with municipalities.
In both cases, they're deciding it's better if you pay - in time, gas, car maintenance, mental health, productivity, and stress - for their business decisions that went bad instead of paying money out of their own bloated pockets.
Ok, I need to tell someone else. The other day I ran into an acquaintance, John. He was telling me about his new manager job. Currently, everyone is working remote. An email was sent out to John's team inviting them to lunch so that the team could meet John in person.
Apparently, only 1 person showed up. John got butthurt. John told his boss that he thinks his team doesn't "engage enough" at work and that he thinks remote work is to blame. John told me he likes to test people randomly by sending them a Slack message and seeing how long it takes to respond. Apparently, he thinks 5 minutes for a response means people aren't at the computer working. John has convinced his boss to force people back in the office...
Look forward to the follow-up where he has to explain why they are losing the good team members
Not well played by team imo, sad story but that's not how you keep your privileges
Maybe? It was an "optional" lunch meeting. I tend to skip meetings that aren't required because I want to keep working.
But, sure. I understand managers/leaders want to feel important, so fine, I show up to the meetings. I sit at the desk, open the laptop, and tune them out while I actually get work done. Like, the thing we're supposed to be doing. I have the 15 pieces of flair, ok.
Fuck John. All my homies hate John.
Here's my theory: bad bosses want you to be there in person because they think you're lazy.
My old job: there was a constant cloud of mistrust I got when I worked there, just a feeling of unease. I can't really describe it. Like everyone was just a little bit unhappy with their job. It wasn't related to the work we were doing, it was the working conditions. Everyone seemed unhappy with some policy. I consistently heard bickering about management and idiotic decisions, plus the usual customer complaints about clients making bad decisions or doing ridiculous things, but that's normal and nobody seemed miffed about it, just discussing it.
They had a "hybrid" work setup, each person was "allowed" to work remotely one day of the week, each week. The selection of which day was up to each worker and their team/manager to schedule. The expectation was that someone would be in office at all times on every team. Most teams were 3-4 people, so it generally meant that only one person was working remotely at a time.
So let me compound this, and I'll note, there's no exaggeration here, this is what happened. While working, we were obligated to be in a teams meeting all day long, 9 times out of 10 it was expected that we were on cam the entire day. Frequently these teams meetings were only the team in question, but the justification was that we were in there in case a manager/team leader/whatever, could pop in and talk to the team if they needed to, and/or if the manager was working remotely. It was pretty rare that happened. The other excuse was so that the team could chat about challenges and discuss any client issues they needed to collaborate on, which most teams just used text chat to do, so the meeting was unnecessary. During my time there, I made several suggestions for improvements and they all fell on deaf ears. Nothing changed. The excuses were poor, and I don't recall them very clearly because they were largely nonsense. Needless to say, the situation sucked.
I had to drive into the office for about 1h+ each day, and at least the same coming home, so around 2.5h of my day was my commute. I pleaded for more work from home/remote, but it was denied at every turn. Add this to the fact that there was no company provided parking, and parking in that area started at about $70/mo, and went up from there. The nearest parking areas were the most costly at $130+ and they were in high demand, some had wait lists for monthly passes because they simply did not have enough parking spots for everyone that wanted them.
There were probably dozens of other frustrations I could list, I'll limit myself to one more: my job is IT support, and we largely use remote access software for everything, so it literally does not matter where I work from. As long as I have an internet connection, I can do my job.
I didn't last 2 years under those conditions. I barely made it to 1 year.... There's a whole story as to why I don't work there anymore, but it's not relevant to the point. My point is, I was untrusted, and treated as though I should just shut up and create value for the shareholders, and be happy about it. By the way, the shareholders were the managers.
Contrast with the place I'm working now: I'm provided with $1000 of home office set up funds up front. I have a home office already set up, but I found some nice-to-have things that I was able to get with that money. I was shipped a brand new laptop and dock, which the old place gave me a used, old, crappy, end of life/end of support system. They also provided me with a UPS, keyboard, mouse, and three monitors, webcam, headset, etc. Before I even worked my first shift, all shipped to me directly. This job is 100% work from home, and this workplace doesn't even have an official office space. The only exception is when hands-on is required, or there's a team event, and we take over a client's board room for a day, so we can work from there, which has been less than once a month. I've met my team in person exactly twice in the three+ months I've worked at this place.
Any suggestions I have are discussed and considered. I feel heard. Some suggestions have already been implemented, others are still under consideration or have been denied with good reasons (usually a technical limitation regarding the systems we use). I don't need to sit in on useless meetings all day that accomplish nothing, I can listen to music while I get things done without being distracted by my co-workers eating their lunch and forgetting to hit mute. I "see" my team once a day for a stand up to check in on progress and workload. I feel supported, trusted, and I'm free to work in whatever conditions I find are most condusive to getting things done.
As a matter of fact: both jobs require time tracking, the old job I struggled to account for (approx) 5 hrs of my 8 hour shift, at the new job, I frequently can account for (approx) 7 hours of my day without issue.
My boss is good, trusting, and friendly. Compared to the cloud of discontent my old boss would inspire, and the work shows through on that. I'm happier, and I enjoy work again.
I recently heard that the old job nixed hybrid and went full RTO.
QED: Good bosses trust that you'll do your job and let you do that from wherever you can. Bad bosses want to control you into doing it "their way or the highway".
It's micromanaging. They don't know how to lead properly. When I went through McDonald's shift manager training they taught the concept of letting your workers do their job, so you could do yours. They literally said to work with your hands in your pockets so that you wouldn't be tempted to take over and get distracted by going back to what you used to do. A Managers job is to provide their team with whatever they need to do their job effectively. A baseball coach wouldn't go out on the field and bat or play the outfield.
That manager probably started off doing the job you were doing and got promoted by kissing ass or being a toxic worker and therefore causing everyone else to leave/ perform lower because they were avoiding that person.
In that case, the management was basically the founders. They grew the business without any employees, and when it came time to bring on employees, instead of stepping back and letting the employees figure out the best way to get their job done, they've rigidly enforced their work methodology on their employees. When you deviate, they get unhappy.
That specific company was a bit of an outlier, the majority shareholder "brags" that he has fired more people than.... I don't remember, I couldn't have given less of a shit when he said that. I was busy trying to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head. But that's literally something he said to me in person, with nobody else in the room. Needless to say, that company is shit for more reasons than controlling management.
Needless to say I was already starting to look for the exit after being there for less than a year.
I can't really talk about why I am no longer employed there, but I can confirm that I did not, at any point, provide two weeks notice as required by law when quitting. Beyond that, my lawyer advises me not to discuss it.
Needless to say, I'm thankful that I'm not working there anymore.
They literally said to work with your hands in your pockets so that you wouldn't be tempted to take over and get distracted
Yeah this is my experience with managers, alright. When they weren't around, the actual work to be done always seemed to go just fine! Happy worker anarchy!
My supervisor's role in various jobs I've had was usually to hang out in their back office or chat up other management -level staff all day. Occasionally opening Excel and punching in some numbers once a week. Not to mention the hard labor of scheming up something they could neg you about so you'd feel pushed to make them look better.
That manager probably started off doing the job you were doing and got promoted by kissing ass or being a toxic worker
This. The company will promote its "true believers" who think shift-managing a MickeyD's is their life's plateau, who will take the company line as sacred gospel and punish any whiff of potential heresy.
Provide what their workers need? Maybe it was this way at one point. I feel the role of manager now is the job of an idiot task-master, to convince their employees to work harder without what they need.
The reason good bosses can trust you is that they can quantify your output. Bad bosses just assume an ass in a seat is getting something done.
This is part of the reason sales positions are often the only WFH positions at a company. Their metrics are clear and easily quantifiable, so if someone's not doing their job you can tell.
The time entries on my tickets would disagree with this logic.
Them: I need you in the office so I can keep you under my finger!
Me: Bro do you know how much in rent and power you're gonna save keeping them at home?
the only expenses businesses ever complain about are wages. they don't seem to care how much is wasted elsewhere if they could save a few dollars cutting some shift workers allowance
Boss: you are not allowed to with from home
Same boss: I'll be working from work, I need to service my car
I Like how he becomes so angry that he starts to bleed 😂
Hey boss, you want to put these servers in the cloud?
Oh and by the way, me working from home is the human equivalent of working in the cloud.
It's somebody else's server (clouds) and somebody else's office (yours instead of theirs)
I save $7 per day working from home while I can listen to death metal.
Majority of the wealthy higher ups in corporate management don't care about reducing emissions. They care about making their companies look good.
Talking about working towards climate change goals or talking about supporting marginalized groups is easy. Actually doing something is a lot different, but even today very few people look for actions.
Changing policy is actually pretty easy. Sure there are probably laws and regulations that need to be taken into account, but employing the right people to look into it can save huge amounts off their budget after only a few months. To me it shows poor leadership at the top that they dont.
It's not entirely true though. It is a lot of work. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but often times unless you can incentivize it then they won't.
Even then, many companies find ways around it, such as dealing with carbon credits, which basically allow them to continue harming the environment for a cost, because apparently it's still cheaper that way.
It's hypocrisy all the way down. Microsoft is telling people to run their 144hz screens at 60hz to save the planet while sending thousands of good computers to the landfill with their stupid TPM requirements. Never believed this "carbon footprint" garbage, never will. You are the carbon that they want to reduce.
Honestly I think we’re going to hit a wall where we realize we need about half as many “office drones” as we have in a couple years.
So many people with office jobs drive in, sit at a desk, and do maybe 2 hours of actual work in the entire day. Or they work from home and do the same. And then they collect their 95k/year salary.
I really dunno if people are prepared for businesses to start going “wait, what are all of these people doing?” And axing their workforce and replacing most of them with AI or existing other employees
The thing you're not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what "office drones" are doing, aren't productive in the same way that physical or service jobs are.
Looking off into space thinking is part of the work. People average about four hours of productive work in an eight hour day.The thing you can't do is get rid of half the people and then expect the other half to magically be eight hours productive per day. Businesses keep trying and weirdly it just tanks their output.
AI is not the panacea that so many people think it is. Do you feel happy when you need help with something you bought and you get an AI trying to offer you helpful articles or tips? I don't. Do you want the same level of service from the entity that controls where your paycheck gets deposited or fixed your HSA contributions?
If you definition of work is butts in chairs typing, office workers don't do too much work. But that's a very naive definition of what most office workers are actually doing.
Incredibly well said. I'm saving this.
The thing you're not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what "office drones" are doing
Found the office drone.
Our office drones are not "thinking" for half the day like you, and input and manipulate data. You could also include half these "managers" too who sit in an office sending emails all day, and never hit the shop floor.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much
If offices REALLY want their workers in their buildings they've known for years that they have the options of using the real estate of the surface area* on the building itself to place solar and offset their demand massively. They can also incentivise massively to help their workers use electric vehicles - no not cars but ebikes, scooters and electric motorcycles and provide secure parking and charging. For those that use these, give them a bonus, buy the bike for them. Bikes free up staff parking to be used for other things.
*the sides of the building can also be used to hang panels, so if the roof is occupied with air con systems etc you still get power. There is usually just a 10% drop off in daily power generation, too, but an advantage is both that the panel cools more effectively in this position, and it also cools the building passively by shading the sun.
I don't have the kind of job that can be done remotely, but I'm all for remote work where it's possible and desired. My best friend hated working from home at the height of covid because he's an extrovert who can't really afford to go out much. Now he works from home Mondays and Fridays and I think it's kinda the best of both worlds for him. I think that employers that already have office space for workers that could effectively do their job from home should give workers a choice. Maybe hybrid workers have required scheduled days in the office just to make sure they're there to attend necessary meetings or collaborations or whatever rather than it just be them coming in when they feel like it, but the technology has caught up to allow way more flexibility than ever before. If I had a 100% desk job, I would move somewhere cheaper and never come in. I know I'm not alone there, and I think there's no reason to hold that option hostage. Covid proved that it could be done for most white collar work, and we can't let them try to squeeze that Pandora back into its box.
I hate how the left hand panes look Ron DeSantis, and cutting carbon emissions isn't something that asswhipe would discuss since he and his predecessor, Senator Rick Scott, like to pretend climate change isn't real and it's "wokie/DEI/SJW/Socialist/Communist/Chinese/etc. bullshit". However he would definitely get mad at work from home, regardless of how much it betters the state of Florida, gotta keep those slaves in the fields where can see them, right?
Only if the environmental narrative was cohesive and consistent lol.
If govts really cared about the environment they would push companies into remote working as much as possible instead of pushing for electric cars that are a hazard to the planet.
My job forced us back to the office. The eating area has a big dumb sign that says the company is helping solve climate change... because they use paper cups...
The only inconsistent thing is how much worse we find out it is as new studies come out.
Thanks Biden ya fuckin loser: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/07/1196787623/federal-workers-remote-office-ordered-taxpayers-telework-science
I like working from the office but I agree the rest of you all should wfh so I can have the roads and office building to myself.
I worry that the widespread acceptance of work from home without any other societal changes will increase the level of loneliness. It's a solution that has to come packaged with other quality of life enhancements or social trust is going into an even faster free fall. I wonder what a wfh/social solution would look like.
Edit: I'm not advocating for the office, I just think people like me wouldn't do very well without other changes, and I think there are more people who don't know how to make adult friends than we think. I'm not even an introvert, I just don't go to any place often enough to make friends from it.
If your only social interactions are through work, you've got a problem already.
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Yeah, I agree. That's why I think loneliness would increase, being at work masks a pretty significant issue
You have potentially two or more hours added to your day for socializing.
Get lunch nearby, go to the park, do stuff in the evening.
If you're too isolated physically that speaks to urban sprawl and car dependency more than wfh imo
Fucking go outside and go to social gatherings
Most of the social gatherings I've been to have been set up with coworkers. Maybe I was conditioned by the American education system but I don't think I've ever made a friend outside of a place that we both were expected to go to consistently. I'm not very familiar with constructs outside of that if I'm honest.
In theory if you have a circle of friends already, then social should be better with WFH because when it is quitting time you are immediately done and have more evening for social gatherings. if you recently moved cities before WFH, not having colleages might cut down chances of finding new friend groups
I have only ever had stressful social interaction at work, except for my current job where I'm generally the only one there and as long as I'm within budget whatever I say goes. That is to say the only non stressful job I have done is the one that is 99% just me with no other people and I only even need to be there because it's physical work, the odd clerical thing is done from home on a phone work profile.
Don't get me wrong I have certainly had my fair share of bad work interactions but most were benign and some became friends. Although I'm not advocating for the office, I just think people like me wouldn't do very well without other changes, and I think there are more people who don't know how to make adult friends than we think. I'm not even an introvert, I just don't go to any place often enough to make friends from it
I worked with the public. I was constantly stressed out and kept away from my coworkers I actually got along with. I always felt "alone in a crowd."
I'd lie if I said thoughts of self-termination never crossed my mind. Only one or two of those coworkers actually kept up with me when I left, too.
I get a little lonely at home now, but I'm with people I love, and I make time to talk to people by choice.
Quality over quantity, I'd say.
It's going to result in the wholesale exportation of white collar jobs overseas. It's already underway.
