Not an RTO rant. Are there more distractions in the office now than pre-pandemic? I do see people with their heads down and focusing on their work, but there are so many who seem to have unlimited free time for visiting with their neighbors. Has the bar for productivity been lowered, or am I misremembering?
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My office is usually empty so I don't know. I wonder where the people who have the address in phone actually go?
now it' people hacking their lungs up and hearing what's coming up. Yuck!!! I heard the same dang stories and people have no clue they speak loudly. Or do antics to be funny. It's distracting
Also discussing salaries
THIS IS A COBC VIOLATION. GIVE ME YOUR ATTUID
I try to have my head down and work, but I keep getting distracted by people who want to chit chat. Then someone else comes in, and the “how did your weekend go?” conversation starts all over. At least when I was at home, I could answer that question on Teams when it was convenient, or copy and paste the same answer to everyone who asked.
Sounds like I am being a d**k, but I then have to work another 2 hours to make up for all the interruptions.
I love chit chatting with peers about threads from this site or gossiping and speculating about T’s decline! Also discussing salaries.. I give the same effort as I get paid, mediocre.
I think we pay way too many people to do nothing.
I just hope when they switch it to 5 days required(which is almost certainly happening next year) we actually get assigned desks.
I feel as though they’re going to force 5 days and keep the current setup to make us even more miserable than we already are.
Sounds like people are collaborating and networking as they are supposed too. Get with the new program.
I got sent back into the office in 2018, pre-covid. It was for the workplace 2020 initiative. The office environment now feels the same as back then except there seems to be less cleaning and maintenance now.
The work environment is not conducive to productivity. Employees don't have dedicated desks that they can go to in order to get into focus mode and get work done. There is no privacy at all, with the open spaces and tables, separated by very short dividers. This isn't the kind of environment that invites quiet concentration. In addition, many, if not most employees, aren't co-located with their work peers and are required to be on MS Team calls. With everyone using MS Teams, there simply is no practical way to filter out the noise. And to add to that, there's the psychology of having these conditions forced upon the workers, with tracking of employee movements. People tend to fight against that kind of culture, weather it can be justified or not; it's simply human nature.
“Sure sounds like a RTO rant.”
Go back to bed John, it’s Saturday. Unless you are trying to finish up your PLE training:
647352 - Hiring Ugly People to do Ugly Things
Sure sounds like a RTO rant.
“Whine and cry all you want you will either return to the office or find another job; you don't make the rules.”
I love it when a L3/L4 graces us with their presence. Welcome Clown.
I don’t mind coming into the office. I like seeing people like you walking around with your stupid title waiting to be noticed. The look on your face when you see me is priceless. I’m the guy that looks you square in the eyes with the look of “I don’t care who you are”
So you’re right, I don’t make the rules, but I sure have fun messing with the bozos that do. Stop by and say hi sometime big shot. If you have the ba--s that is.
RTO makes me sad and depressed.
I keep to myself and don’t really have anyone to talk to. I feel isolated and alone the entire day. My team is not local and I feel like don’t belong. Some days I go to the bathroom and cry. With all the stern rhetoric about RTO from management, I dare not talk to anyone about how I feel so I am not ridiculed.
Whine and cry all you want you will either return to the office or find another job; you don't make the rules.
"Following the collaborative mandate"
There was no mandate to collaborate. Only a mandate to come into the office. As a matter of fact, they almost made it impossible to collaborate since no one is guaranteed desks with their team.
"We laid off half the workforce and now we don’t have space? Maybe this space problem is exaggerated."
We also sold off real estate and moved out of rental properties. And in some places like Atlanta, Mike Ford (CRE VP) and his team decided to shut down 2 buildings at the same time for renovations and move all those folks into a third building that was already at capacity. So, no, it is not exaggerated unless you are talking about the brilliance of our leaders.
They have unlimited free time to visit with their neighbors because once you in office nobody gives a flying duck about their laptops being idle.
The C-Suite got what they wanted, everyone in the office, but now they have no way to monitor collaboration versus blabberation.
And don’t think that walking the halls like some hall monitor is going to intimidate anyone because we don’t care what you think no matter your stupid title.
For me it's trying to participate in dynamic interactive meetings on Teams while a group of people stand behind me talking about birthdays, kid sports, PTA, music lessons, sicknesses, menstrual pain, doctor visits, weekend plans, trashing a spouse, new vehicles, vacation plans, getting drunk, etc. Not to be forgotten are the individuals who ask about diagrams and information being shared in the Teams meeting, or ask about something you said on the call (while you are still on that call). There is a complete loss of office etiquette from pre to post pandemic.
By far the biggest issue is all the a-holes who put on their noise cancelling headphones for meetings on their computers and then talk just as loudly as they can to pi-s off everyone around them. Even if you suggest they get a room, they just keep doing it. The younger and more foreign they are, the bigger the problem. They just can't get it through their thick skulls to be polite.
We laid off half the workforce and now we don’t have space? Maybe this space problem is exaggerated.
"It was always a distraction to be at home for me. I get more done at work because I go to my son's baseball . . . "
Great, you are the ahole that was too immature to handle not working under the thumb of your boss. You are the reason we cannot have nice things. If you cannot work without your boss then you should not be with the company. This is as much the bosses fault as it is the employees fault.
@mqz+1uBhTwM1 you jelly cuz you can't WFH?
"The awful open cubes on some of these floors makes this 100x worse"
I wish I had cubes. I have a 2' x 4' table. My monitor is the closest thing to a cube wall I have. At some of the stations, I stretch my arms out and just about touch 6 people around me. It is a joke. If you are wondering . . . this is 1277 Lenox on 2rd floor. CRE is also on this floor but they were kind enough to reserve 30 spaces for 15 people. The other groups have 45 people and only 40 spaces. Go Figure.
the main difference pre versus post pandemic office work for me is that my team is no longer co-located and I don’t have a dedicated work space. my cube in the old days was nothing special but it was a game changer to have my own snacks, electronics, and place to sit and focus without the stress of finding a place everyday. also since we were colocated all meetings were in person and not on teams. we also sat together all day every day.
It was always a distraction to be at home for me. I get more done at work because I go to my son's baseball game during work hours. I do need to collaborate because i'm at some remote resort vacation, "working," distracted by beach goers and constantly hassled by the beach waiter on what to drink when i'm on a conference call on Teams. Don't get me started on the spring break college kids taking up the outdoor cabanas because I woke up too late to find a "desk."
Upper management knows we can’t concentrate in open floor plans. Saving money is more important. Do the best you can. It’s not changing.
The awful open cubes on some of these floors makes this 100x worse
I thought the endless non-work chit chat was just the newness of RTO. I was wrong.
Following the collaborative mandate, you aren’t in compliance. Living their purpose.
It was always a distraction to be in the office for me. I get more done at home because no one comes over to collaborate with me on their son's baseball game, or their upcoming vacation. I don't have to find a place to have a meeting, or listen to other people's meetings since the conference rooms are taken up by people who get in too late to find a desk.