Missing the Office

  • My company rents a WeWork office in Manchester(UK).  I've gone in and been the only one there but mostly there are between 3 and 6 people in, sometimes more.

    The We Work premises has some small sit-down booths with a folding door should we need to make a video call.  That means our calls don't have to interrupt our colleagues.

    If we need a meeting room our company has a certain number of credits for hiring one.  We did discuss getting a bigger office however the natural office attendance suggests we don't need it yet.  If we were 100% in the office then, yes, we would need that bigger office.

    The important bit is that we, as adults, are self-organising.  In my experience across the decades I've been in employment, it is the misbehaviour of the 5% that dictates how the 95% get treated.

  • sean redmond wrote:

    The company I work for has about 120 employees but desks for only 80 or so. We moved to a hot-desk office model during the pandemic and kept it ever since.

    ...

    I would prefer a quasi hot-desk model, that is, one moves as the work requires it. If you are in a new project with a new combination of co-workers, then it makes sense to sit down beside them so that the team benefits from proximity. If somebody else would like the desk that you are sitting in, then let them reserve it and they have it next week.

    We use an app, called Envoy, for all of our offices where you can book a desk. You see the floor plan, and can choose from open ones. You can book multiple days, though I think there's a limit. There are people who come in most days or often enough that they have reserved desks that are personalized.

    Lots of solutions here, but the key is thinking flexibility.

  • Peter Schott wrote:

    I'm sure there are some people who miss being in the office and for some reason, there are people who love that "open floor plan" idea. I could deal with being in an office, but the commute time was definitely a factor against it. The open floor plan was something I absolutely detested - noise and distractions everywhere, sound bouncing off everything, no place to go to actually focus. Add in a commute to a busy downtown with lots of traffic and hard to find parking and I don't ever want a return to that sort of office.

    ...

    Commute is definitely a challenge. I think it's fair that 100% in the office is hard for that reason alone, but there are others. However, I think a commute isn't a reason to never go to the office either.

  • Commutes may not be a reason to never go near an office, but pre-2020, the commute length was definitely a factor in choosing a job. The place I'd worked for years was on "my" side of downtown Dallas, which led to an acceptable commute time for me. The building also had parking for its people without paying for a spot like you would in a downtown area. The move to downtown Dallas meant a significantly longer commute due to traffic, having to pay for parking, and dealing with all of the frustration of the timing of that drive.  Public transit is still not really an option from where I live with the nearest station being around halfway in that commute, at which point it just makes sense to finish the drive.

    I know of others who had a reasonable office commute and then the office moved to some other location, which factored negatively into the equation due to the time/cost. I think it's also worth considering if you actually will see your co-workers. For that downtown job, my immediate team was all over the country, so being in the office was not a positive for interacting with them. My current job has team members spread out throughout the country so being in an office would just mean online meetings/chats to "meet" with them.  I know others have closer teams so they'd have some collaboration and maybe a meetup every now and then is worth that time, but if it's purely a matter of "we have this expensive commercial space and I need people in it" ... that's a poor excuse for pushing people into the office. 🙁

  • Kevin Kennedy wrote:

    I am not a fan of open workspaces. When I am working, I do not want to be able to see anyone nor do I want to be seen. I am too easily distracted.

    I think one needs to be intentional about interacting with their coworkers. This applies to both in-person and remote work. It is certainly easier for that to happen when everyone is in an office but its not guaranteed.

    I found this article about cubes rather interesting:

    Bring Office Cubicles Back; Improve Employee Productivity, Hybrid Work (businessinsider.com)

     

    I think that's fair. We have some pod-like structures with doors, and some small conference rooms for people to use when they are in the office. I think the key is in the office time shouldn't be highly, 100% focused work, but more collaborative, brainstorming, etc. work.

    I'm not sure I thought cubicles were much better for that. Visually you might not see people, but you could hear things. Today's newer NC headphones might make that better.

  • Peter Schott wrote:

    ...

    I know others have closer teams so they'd have some collaboration and maybe a meetup every now and then is worth that time, but if it's purely a matter of "we have this expensive commercial space and I need people in it" ... that's a poor excuse for pushing people into the office. 🙁

    Agreed, and a few executives feel this way

  • Rod at work wrote:

    I'm ruining my hearing because I wear a headset playing music as loudly as I can handle, trying to drown out the noise and distractions around me.

    ...

    I realized that my insisting everyone WFH, is wrong. I now know that WFH, especially full time as I'd like to, isn't for everyone. It is for me, but I'm not going to force it on others. Unfortunately, there are employers who feel that the only way of working is everyone in the office, all the time, and they refuse to discuss it with their employees.

    You need better headphones, Rod. The noise cancellation is amazing on some of them. I love my Bose 700 for airplanes as I can actually hear movies. With most others, I hear too much airplane noise and can't really enjoy media/music.

  • I'm ready for the structure of going back to the office more days per week. But I dislike open office plans, so I'm glad to be able to work in a cubicle at the office. Reminds me of the good old days. Lol.

    -- webrunner

    • This reply was modified 7 months ago by  webrunner.

    -------------------
    A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
    Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html

  • I love my Bose 700 for airplanes as I can actually hear movies. With most others, I hear too much airplane noise and can't really enjoy media/music.

    Truth. But while they are great for airplane noise (and Roombas!), there is only so much they can do about ringing phones and loud conversations. They do help, but not nearly enough make working in an open office or cube farm tolerable for a lot of people who need to be able to focus on their work.

  • I love my Bose 700 for airplanes as I can actually hear movies. With most others, I hear too much airplane noise and can't really enjoy media/music.

    Truth! They are great for engine noise, whether from an airplane or a Roomba, but they don't do much for constantly ringing phones and loud talkers.

    Light is another issue. Many offices, regardless of whether people work mainly or exclusively on monitors instead of with paper, insist on using enough overhead light to make it almost impossible to see what's on the monitors.

     

  • Just because no one else has mentioned it, I'm going to bring up COVID-19. It still isn't gone, lots of people are high risk or immunocompromised, and pretty much no one wears masks in the office. I will not go back to working in an office, even for an hour, without masking or serious HVAC upgrades.

    I'm very lucky to have found a work situation where all my coworkers are scattered across the globe, and even though my company has an office local to me, they are fine with my working from home permanently because there is zero benefit to them from my being in the office with hundreds of people with whom I have no work in common. If I had to find another job, full-time remote will be on my requirements.

    I do miss being part of a dev team that works closely together,  etc. However, my current job almost never involves my collaborating with more than a few people at a time, and rarely at that. So Microsoft Teams is sufficient. I do miss having lunch with random people from around IT in the company just to share info on what projects people are working on, how things are going, etc. But in my case most of them are a 10+ hour flight away from me so it isn't really an option.

  • m60freeman wrote:

    Just because no one else has mentioned it, I'm going to bring up COVID-19. It still isn't gone, lots of people are high risk or immunocompromised, and pretty much no one wears masks in the office. I will not go back to working in an office, even for an hour, without masking or serious HVAC upgrades.

    I'm very lucky to have found a work situation where all my coworkers are scattered across the globe, and even though my company has an office local to me, they are fine with my working from home permanently because there is zero benefit to them from my being in the office with hundreds of people with whom I have no work in common. If I had to find another job, full-time remote will be on my requirements.

    I do miss being part of a dev team that works closely together,  etc. However, my current job almost never involves my collaborating with more than a few people at a time, and rarely at that. So Microsoft Teams is sufficient. I do miss having lunch with random people from around IT in the company just to share info on what projects people are working on, how things are going, etc. But in my case most of them are a 10+ hour flight away from me so it isn't really an option.

    WOW, I hear ya! I am unfortunate enough to work in an office comprised only of cubicle farms on three floors. We're so tight together that if it weren't for the 4 ft. walls, we'd almost be in one another's laps. The lights are so bright that after a while I will have a migraine. No one cares, "You've got sick leave!" And the loud conversations, phone calls, MS Teams meetings, etc. are always a major distracting nuisance, but again those in charge don't care. Its like they believe everyone works exactly like they do, involved in back-to-back meetings every day, etc.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

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