The work from home situation shows how much corporate expertise is fake. There was no reason to shove everyone into the office into the first place, so now they're sending us back because they don't want to admit they fucked up the first time.
They'll argue that it "increases productivity" but no one has any way of measuring white collar productivity. It's corporate string theory
I’m the rare case who really, REALLY prefers the office. My home is very small - enough space for me and my spouse (who works at a bank and so never got to work at home), but there’s absolutely nothing in it that could be used as office space, and no storage space to hold any office furniture or other supplies. I spent the pandemic squeezing two monitors onto a child’s desk in our living room, setting up and taking down the whole setup twice a day, and storing it in our spare bedroom. We have no A/C, as most renters in our area don’t, so I was sometimes working from home in 100-degree heat.
And, well, my office situation is pretty cushy - we’re a small outfit where even relatively new employees like me get our own big space with a door that closes, and it’s a 5-minute drive and 20-minute walk from my house, so no commute. I completely understand why most people find being in the office unbearable now. But I was the first and, for six months, the only one back when we reopened.
I appreciate the links/descriptions of non-mask risk mitigation tactics. Most of my coworkers are very much in the “why risk it at all?” group and still very obsessive about masking. It would be nice to be able to present easy alternatives backed up with research.
Taking into account your focus upon "risk" of contracting the virus upon returning to the workplace as being a significant factor affecting people who have a choice of returning to the office (let's call it) or working from home, I was fortunate enough to be able to make that choice years ago when digitised comm became robust enough for my job's needs. Fortunate, too because it allowed me to work 1,300 miles away from the office and carry on communication with others with whom I worked that were all over the globe. And, of course I could deal with individuals in quite different time-zones, arranging my working times accordingly. The most obvious benefit of this type of work regime is the lack of commute. I believe that the majority of those who are choosing to stay at home are doing so for much the same reason as was mine: huge savings in money and time spent commuting to and from the office. At the same time, my brother-in-law had his law practice in a city which was 90 miles from his residence, so he drove a 180-mile round-trip five days a week (in a Chevrolet Suburban!) He paid for this in time, fuel burned, and automobile expense...not to mention the additional drag on job performance and happy home life that comes from such an extravagant commute. I cannot help but believe that elimination of an utterly senseless commute is the primary motivation for many that would opt for the home office. Additionally, they can expunge themselves from the guilt that so much fuel-burning whilst commuting creates in this day of such acute climate awareness. The conversion to a home office job is in fact a significant raise in salary, too (obviously).
I didn’t know about CO2 monitors, but now that you mention them, they sound like an excellent way to check for levels of virus too. I think that ventilation is one mitigation measure that has been far too underutilized in the US. When we first moved here, I thought that Europeans seemed obsessed with ventilation (it’s even written into our lease that we have to ventilate the apartment ten minutes per day). The pandemic has demonstrated that ventilation is not an old wives’ tale--it’s scientifically valid. My daughter’s school was open for all but the first six weeks of the pandemic. The older kids and adults wore masks, the windows were open, and there was no spread of virus whatsoever, for the entire duration of the pandemic.
I have numerous coworkers who have complained about the possibility of returning to the office, yet at the height of the pandemic, they were planning off-site get-togethers with coworkers who they hadn't seen because they all chose to remain home instead of working in the office. Some have even threatened to quit if they're called back. Can't say I blame anyone for wanting to remain home, but it's certainly not because of a virus for the majority of them.
The work from home situation shows how much corporate expertise is fake. There was no reason to shove everyone into the office into the first place, so now they're sending us back because they don't want to admit they fucked up the first time.
They'll argue that it "increases productivity" but no one has any way of measuring white collar productivity. It's corporate string theory
I’m the rare case who really, REALLY prefers the office. My home is very small - enough space for me and my spouse (who works at a bank and so never got to work at home), but there’s absolutely nothing in it that could be used as office space, and no storage space to hold any office furniture or other supplies. I spent the pandemic squeezing two monitors onto a child’s desk in our living room, setting up and taking down the whole setup twice a day, and storing it in our spare bedroom. We have no A/C, as most renters in our area don’t, so I was sometimes working from home in 100-degree heat.
And, well, my office situation is pretty cushy - we’re a small outfit where even relatively new employees like me get our own big space with a door that closes, and it’s a 5-minute drive and 20-minute walk from my house, so no commute. I completely understand why most people find being in the office unbearable now. But I was the first and, for six months, the only one back when we reopened.
I appreciate the links/descriptions of non-mask risk mitigation tactics. Most of my coworkers are very much in the “why risk it at all?” group and still very obsessive about masking. It would be nice to be able to present easy alternatives backed up with research.
Taking into account your focus upon "risk" of contracting the virus upon returning to the workplace as being a significant factor affecting people who have a choice of returning to the office (let's call it) or working from home, I was fortunate enough to be able to make that choice years ago when digitised comm became robust enough for my job's needs. Fortunate, too because it allowed me to work 1,300 miles away from the office and carry on communication with others with whom I worked that were all over the globe. And, of course I could deal with individuals in quite different time-zones, arranging my working times accordingly. The most obvious benefit of this type of work regime is the lack of commute. I believe that the majority of those who are choosing to stay at home are doing so for much the same reason as was mine: huge savings in money and time spent commuting to and from the office. At the same time, my brother-in-law had his law practice in a city which was 90 miles from his residence, so he drove a 180-mile round-trip five days a week (in a Chevrolet Suburban!) He paid for this in time, fuel burned, and automobile expense...not to mention the additional drag on job performance and happy home life that comes from such an extravagant commute. I cannot help but believe that elimination of an utterly senseless commute is the primary motivation for many that would opt for the home office. Additionally, they can expunge themselves from the guilt that so much fuel-burning whilst commuting creates in this day of such acute climate awareness. The conversion to a home office job is in fact a significant raise in salary, too (obviously).
I didn’t know about CO2 monitors, but now that you mention them, they sound like an excellent way to check for levels of virus too. I think that ventilation is one mitigation measure that has been far too underutilized in the US. When we first moved here, I thought that Europeans seemed obsessed with ventilation (it’s even written into our lease that we have to ventilate the apartment ten minutes per day). The pandemic has demonstrated that ventilation is not an old wives’ tale--it’s scientifically valid. My daughter’s school was open for all but the first six weeks of the pandemic. The older kids and adults wore masks, the windows were open, and there was no spread of virus whatsoever, for the entire duration of the pandemic.
I have numerous coworkers who have complained about the possibility of returning to the office, yet at the height of the pandemic, they were planning off-site get-togethers with coworkers who they hadn't seen because they all chose to remain home instead of working in the office. Some have even threatened to quit if they're called back. Can't say I blame anyone for wanting to remain home, but it's certainly not because of a virus for the majority of them.