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Working from home

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WestRiding

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bramling

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I cannot think of anything worse than working from home. What a depressing thought, in the house all week and losing touch with work mates. Sad really.

Round here (Work From Home Central), people have become very noticeably more irritable and aggressive over the last 18 months, most obviously in the way they drive. If working from home is having such a positive effect on wellbeing, it doesn’t seem to be manifesting itself.
 

WestRiding

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Round here (Work From Home Central), people have become very noticeably more irritable and aggressive over the last 18 months, most obviously in the way they drive. If working from home is having such a positive effect on wellbeing, it doesn’t seem to be manifesting itself.
I think I would end up depressed if the only people I spoke to were the other half. Seems a sad idea of an existence WFH.
 

Peter Sarf

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I would love to do a bit of working from home. It is not feasible but, if it was feasible I do wonder if I could handle it for many months !. Where people can I do still wonder about the productivity of people and the lack of colaboration if working from home. I know colleagues who were desperate to get back to their office but others who were very happy to stay away. My step son has been working from home for a year or more and not too bothered. But he is very happy that his daughter is back in school as he is now not distracted.

So there are plenty of pros and cons depending on the nature of the job and the person concerned. What is certain is that there will be less commuting and that is good for the environment. But that does lead to the concern that rail's share of the market will decrease if people favour their car.
 

Bishopstone

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The new normal could be quite liberating.

Some of those who have to travel to work may find new opportunities for themselves in home-based work, which better suits their circumstances: caring responsibilities etc.

Equally, those who’ve got fed-up with WFH - maybe they live alone, or in a shared flat etc - could switch into the sociable ‘travel to work’ jobs.

Obviously, this requires a willingness to change role and potentially employer, if necessary, but the young are quite willing to do so, in my experience, and perhaps more of the middle-aged should follow their lead.

I may take my own advice. WFH gets quite tedious, and meanwhile the railway can only run a Sunday timetable because of Not Enough Staff, so I assume they are desperate for trainee drivers and it would be an easy transition. Someone ex-railway can sit at home, lonely, and type things into computers to cover my old role.
 

Peter Sarf

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Try retirement or unemployment ! :)
I entirely agree.


The new normal could be quite liberating.

Some of those who have to travel to work may find new opportunities for themselves in home-based work, which better suits their circumstances: caring responsibilities etc.

Equally, those who’ve got fed-up with WFH - maybe they live alone, or in a shared flat etc - could switch into the sociable ‘travel to work’ jobs.

Obviously, this requires a willingness to change role and potentially employer, if necessary, but the young are quite willing to do so, in my experience, and perhaps more of the middle-aged should follow their lead.

I may take my own advice. WFH gets quite tedious, and meanwhile the railway can only run a Sunday timetable because of Not Enough Staff, so I assume they are desperate for trainee drivers and it would be an easy transition. Someone ex-railway can sit at home, lonely, and type things into computers to cover my old role.
There is apparently demand for larger homes now that people each need a bit of office space.

I do think people choose their jobs on different criterior. Some of that is based on age. When young work is a social step to the pub etc after work, when older time with the family bacomes a priority. i thnk Covid has amplified some of those things and of course oblitererated oters (pub !).
Same. Home is for home for me, and work is for work. Plus I get more personal stuff done at work than I do at home!
Yes I feel I get very little of anything done at home !.

I never liked working from home but that was 30 years ago so before t'internet. But I do not want to travel far - walking distance is my ideal.

my current job is impossible to do away from site and I get a bit envious but not much of others. Don't want to be under the missus feet though - probably do voluntary work when I retire. Did read somewhere years ago that men cope worse than women on retirement because many women have had a stint at home before and tend to have always been busy with houshold chores - bit of an old sexist view that. Mind you my missus thinks she runs the place and I can see that I would be unwelcome there all day.
 
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Peter Sarf

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The new normal could be quite liberating.

Some of those who have to travel to work may find new opportunities for themselves in home-based work, which better suits their circumstances: caring responsibilities etc.

Equally, those who’ve got fed-up with WFH - maybe they live alone, or in a shared flat etc - could switch into the sociable ‘travel to work’ jobs.

Obviously, this requires a willingness to change role and potentially employer, if necessary, but the young are quite willing to do so, in my experience, and perhaps more of the middle-aged should follow their lead.

I may take my own advice. WFH gets quite tedious, and meanwhile the railway can only run a Sunday timetable because of Not Enough Staff, so I assume they are desperate for trainee drivers and it would be an easy transition. Someone ex-railway can sit at home, lonely, and type things into computers to cover my old role.

Same. Home is for home for me, and work is for work. Plus I get more personal stuff done at work than I do at home!

Unemployment certainly isn’t something which anyone should be advocating as good for wellbeing. On the contrary, I have known people who have more or less died from it.
Sadly that is true of retirement as well. My Grandfather had no reason to live after he retired. People slow down and lose interest. Have to find something to do - hobbies.
 

telstarbox

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Without going too off topic, if Brexit (as of the withdrawal date) had caused considerable job losses that would have been apparent on the trains before the pandemic started. There were some organisations like the EU agencies and certain banks who packed up but they could have been masked in the general strong growth of London in the last few years.

Some London commuters were already doing some WFH before Covid so it's difficult to say whether it accelerated a trend already in motion.
 

yorksrob

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Sadly that is true of retirement as well. My Grandfather had no reason to live after he retired. People slow down and lose interest. Have to find something to do - hobbies.

Finding hobbies is something a lot of us would never have trouble doing.

I look at my parents and (dreadful pandemic notwithstanding) they've been enjoying every minute of their retirement.

I guess the key is not to define oneself by ones work.
 

baz962

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I would absolutely hate working from home. Possibly an age thing. In my twenties and thirties I loved my time off and now I actually love working. Due to training in a new company I am not in so much and can't do any overtime until trained. Also have three weeks of annual leave to fit in by December and I'm tearing my hair out. I would go in today for free .
 

yorksrob

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I must admit, being able to go back into the office a couple of days a week has been a great boost for me. I find working from home acceptable for the odd day or two but not long periods.
 

Ianno87

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I have grown to "get" WFH more over the last 18 months but it needs to be Hybrid-ed with some office time. 100% working from home is tedious and ineffective, but 100% office (and the expense and time of travelling this consumes) is simply not necessary.

This is mainly driven by being nearer my family during the day. If I was single or didn't have kids I'd lean more towards the office probably.
 

24Grange

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Somebody once said to me, they would miss work - not for the work itself, but for the social interaction with colleagues and friends.
 

Ianno87

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Somebody once said to me, they would miss work - not for the work itself, but for the social interaction with colleagues and friends.

Absolutely this. That's why 100% WFH will never be for me. Not everyone appreciates how important office interaction is to some people.
 

S&CLER

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I've worked from home for 40 years and enjoyed it, as my work (translating academic books and other documents) didn't involve direct face to face interaction with anyone (I could deal with clients by phone, post, fax and email); in fact I have been dealing with one agency for most of that time and have still never met them face to face (they're in Jersey). It depends entirely on your personality. If you're a loner to begin with, it's no problem; outgoing extroverts would struggle. It helps to have a home office, on which you can shut the door at 5 p.m. And if you want an active social life you need to make an effort to create one in the evenings and at weekends. The big difference I've noted since the coming of email is that people increasingly expect you to be accessible all the time, so that they will email at 4.55 pm and say "can you do this for 9 a.m. tomorrow?" At 73, my answer is "no" - no more urgent deadlines. ever again.
 

87 027

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I think in some cases the choice will not be entirely down to the employee due to organisations downsizing their physical office space, e.g. you can come into work for meetings etc. as needed, but your desk may not necessarily exist any more. My wife works in financial services in a role that is non-customer facing and so will not be allowed back in the office more than 2 days a week, so as to keep what office space is left free for those whose role does require a greater degree of physical presence
 

birchesgreen

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I love working from home, unfortunately i'm going back to the office next week for 2 days a week as it's "safe" though i have to wear a mask when i am not at my desk :P

I don't really want to go back, there is nothing i can do at work i can't do at home. Indeed i will still be using a laptop to log into my old desktop PC remotely, just that me, laptop and desktop will now be in the same building...

Do i miss my colleagues? Not particularly, i don't make close friends at work anymore, i did so in the past but people move on so i can't be bothered anymore.
 

edwin_m

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I've worked from home for 12 years now and it certainly suits me. I find anything involving concentration is impossible in an open-plan office.

However I'm missing the face to face interaction I used to have, on average once a week and often in different offices around the UK and occasionally overseas depending what projects I was working on. My current fear is that it will be virtually impossible to organise face-to-face meetings because there will always be someone that can't make the meeting, perhaps because they are on a money-saving drive or simply because their diary is too full to make time to travel. The worst things are "hybrid meetings" where some people are physically present, and others who are online often can't hear/see well enough what's going on in the room and tend to be forgotten by those who are there.
 

westv

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The office where I had my previous role was almost like working in a library it was so quiet. I hated that part of it.
 

edwin_m

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The office where I had my previous role was almost like working in a library it was so quiet. I hated that part of it.
That depends on the type of work you do and your attitude to social interaction. Others may differ.
 

westv

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That depends on the type of work you do and your attitude to social interaction. Others may differ.
I can only speak for myself. I hate total silence when working in an office, full stop.
 

317 forever

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I prefer working from home for the earliest/latest and weekend shifts but sometimes miss the office for the more middle shifts. Next time I get some weekday shifts starting at 9 or 9.30 I plan to ask to work those back in the office instead.

On the early shifts it is a relief not to have to fit the commute in. On the late shift it is nice to be able to cook my tea as soon as I finish work. It can be handy to have time to go to the supermarket before work.
 

yorksrob

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Lousy broadband is something that's pushing me back towards the office. Virgin Media seems to be getting worse, in spite of supposedly having been upgraded.
 

nlogax

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I spent a day with (real, actual 3d) colleagues in a workshop in the last week. The Square Mile was buzzing during the hot September afternoon, cafes and bars full, people everywhere. Really very hopeful signs. From a personal perspective there are no more blockers to me returning to my employer's offices, however my clients are going to be at their offices very infrequently, likely only a couple of days per month. Bit of a challenge tbh.
 

SteveM70

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WFH is fine for me 90% of the time, and I’ve got into a routine of going into the office one or two days a fortnight to see people face to face.

The key for me, which I realised fairly early on, is to bookend my working day with personal appointments in my work calendar. At first they were generally fictitious as lockdown prevented me doing stuff, now I generally have a swim before work and go to the gym after. This then prevents work extending beyond normal hours, and WFH effectively becoming LFW (living from work)
 

birchesgreen

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Well i returned to the office yesterday for the first time since March 20 last year. Very strange experience as there has been that much of a staff turnover since then i didn't recognise anyone until my boss turned up! Happily my pencil sharpener was where i had left it, that was probably the highlight of my day.
 

D365

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I must admit, being able to go back into the office a couple of days a week has been a great boost for me. I find working from home acceptable for the odd day or two but not long periods.

Lousy broadband is something that's pushing me back towards the office. Virgin Media seems to be getting worse, in spite of supposedly having been upgraded.
I can only echo Rob’s comments :)

Well i returned to the office yesterday for the first time since March 20 last year. Very strange experience as there has been that much of a staff turnover since then i didn't recognise anyone until my boss turned up! Happily my pencil sharpener was where i had left it, that was probably the highlight of my day.
All the small things!
 
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