GRM Selling the HQ had be thinking

Hey at least he engaged them in that discussion. 

He could've said "I want a cube farm as cheap as possible." 

That in of itself is a good step forward. 

My employer is definitely struggling with finding a balance, and I guess I'm taking advantage of it to both mine and the company's benefit?

I actually took an early retirement back in July of 2020, and have been back, off and on, working at an hourly contract rate since.  The hourly rate kind of approaches golden handcuffs.

A very important part of the job is actually going on site and testing the equipment/software.   I spent about half of 2021 sitting in the front of a business jet poking at various systems and controls (It's not all glory-- those seats aren't that easy to get in and out of, and they're good for maybe 2-2 1/2 ours before they numb your ass.  Also, climate control on an aircraft in a hangar in Iowa in August, event with a portable AC unit blowing air into the cabin leaves much to be desired)  I much prefer that to sitting at home in front of a screen on zoom calls, grinding documents, etc.  Also, trying to work from home while there's an active remodeling project underway is not great. (Making money to pay for the remodel project is also good)

However, it seems very few other people can be bothered to come on site to do the testing.  This does let me concentrate on that testing and let other stuff slide.  Apparently the company is willing to pay folks to sit at home in meetings all day long, and there are people willing to do it.

I do see some colleagues who are very productive in the remote/hybrid environment, but there are also some folks that have used remote work to just kind of check out-- not that there weren't folks doing that on site in the past as well.

In reply to pheller :

The funny thing is, how many people are actually working with folks in the same geographic location for these larger companies? If it's a small company with a couple locations then ok.

For most larger companies, not the case. I think of my last major project meeting, My customer was in SF, Manila, Des Moines, and NYC. My team was in Omaha, Chennia India, New Jersey, and Milwaukee. You can lock that energetic person at home as well because they are not in front of anyone anyway. This is very typical. 

There will always be a need for office space. Some people will just not be able to WFH. That's why on paper WeWork makes sense. It can be much cheaper long run to have rent a office locations that the company can pay for. That is what one of my old companies just did. 

I know long term I will not be staying with my current company unless something changes. There is 0 need for me to be in the office but I'm required to be there 3 days a week. I just need to get the Job on my resume so in 2-3 years, I can go full remote or full contractor. 

pheller said:

Oh, that and the ability to work from a beach and extend vacations because we're not getting anymore vacation days. 

Having gone from European to North American levels of vacation time, this is the only factor that makes me think that working for other people could be anything more than a temporary situation for me. That E36 M3 ain't healthy.

pheller said:

Hey at least he engaged them in that discussion. 

He could've said "I want a cube farm as cheap as possible." 

That in of itself is a good step forward. 

It's a nice conversation. But is it ultimately good business?  Not sure...

That meeting probably cost him over $2000.  LITERALLY over what should have been a 5 minute decision about furniture placement.

The staff may "feel good" about being included and engaged, but at the same time they proved to him how indecisive they were and exhibited poor leadership and team working abilities.   
 

He's a nice guy, but he's also a good businessman. If he has to make hard decisions about staffing in the future, he will remember. 

pheller said:

I've heard some good arguments for hybrid work environments that allow companies to determine what their employees are actually good at. 

For example, lets say I'm a churner. I can just do tasks all day long and pump out numbers like nobodies business. But I hate face to face interaction. Why waste office space on me?

Or perhaps I'm someone who is a great collaborator and thrives in meetings, or I'm great with customers - why would you lock me at home? 

The biggest advantage I see to this massive shift in American Corporate Culture is OFFICE DESIGN. The people who want to be in the office now will have more leverage to say "hey, I need an office with a door and a window." and the folks who don't care - they can work from home. 

Oh, that and the ability to work from a beach and extend vacations because we're not getting anymore vacation days. 

I agree with everything you said except the last part. If I'm working, I'm not on vacation, even if the scenery is a lot nicer.  That's a line I've learned to hold the hard way.  But that's not what this discussion is about. 

My office is moving to a bigger office, yet still have several people that are strictly work from home.  As long as your management agrees, WFH is on the table.  Most of us are 2-3 days in the office, the rest at home.  For WFH, I agree that there are times where looking someone in the face, or chatting at the coffee machine is worth its weight in gold.  But there are just as many times, if not more, where it's not needed.  Just let me get my work done in peace at home.  

RevRico said:

I still wonder about the why of office jobs to begin with.

Seems at most companies, most office workers just push paper around to make company numbers look good.

Pretty berkeleying useless in the scheme of things, with regards to anything other than the company. 

But getting the paper pushers back into offices, that's just for control. To paraphrase some surely sensationalized headlines, a vast majority of employers with remote workers are spending their time spying on the remote workers. So they know the tasks they're assigning are bullE36 M3 that make no difference to the world, but since they own you 40 hours a week, they're going to make damn sure you're doing it. 

 

I'm just glad I got out of building office buildings long before the pandemic.

Why the hate for desk jobs?  

I did 30 years on a job that was mostly a desk job.  And doing the work at the desk was far more efficient than doing it in a car or at a dyno cell.  It's far more comfortable, the desk is bigger to write with, and the displays can be far bigger to look at data and see how it works.

Maybe you are downplaying what accountants do?  But they are vital, too, so that you can make sure the money flow is working right- I'd rather pay a specialist accountant to pay attention to that than do it myself, as I would rather spend my time looking at data and solving the technical problems I was a specialist at.

The annoying people were the budget people, who were required to approve or deny stuff- but they were vital, too- so that a group didn't spend money on what they didn't have, and what was spent was prioritized as specified by the top management.  Frustrating at times, sure.  But if they let everyone buy whatever they needed without scrutiny, companies would be in development chaos.    

Others are project managers who are annoying, but at the same time, someone needed to focus on keeping a specific project on it's proper development path- so that it could be integrated into the product in a predictable manner.  Otherwise, products would not be properly developed before being sold- and hearing people bitch and moan about issues- that's not going to get a company very far if they don't manage projects very well.

If you don't like working in an office, that's fine- you are just like a lot of people out there.  But thinking that it's useless and pointless is rather misguided.  

In reply to Puddy46 :

+1,000,000,000..... on not working while on vacation.  I never, ever, ever let anyone have a personal contact with me while on vacation.  It's bad enough that it's almost impossible to actually separate yourself from thinking about work while on vacation, it would be far worse to be forced to work while on vacation.

Working on vacation is working, not being on vacation.

Here's an interesting WFH situation I saw recently...

A staff member had been working from home, and the company decided to bring people back to the office (for good reasons). 
 

Her husband got relocated and she requested that she remain on staff as a WFH employee so she could move with him and work from the new location. They agreed because she was good at what she does, but reluctantly. 
 

Turns out she moved from a high cost area to a lower cost area, but maintained her old salary.  She was making a killing.

Then the rest of the staff found out. They were pissed off that she was being paid much more than they were based on local wages, and frustrated. It created a lot of animosity in the staff.  They all wanted to be able to WFH, and be paid at a higher rate.

The company had to let her go to keep the peace.

Toyman! said:

From what I have read, answering services work fine remotely. Design, construction, and professional services don't. It has to do with casual conversation that happens in an office atmosphere that doesn't happen when no one is in the office. Apparently, many of the best ideas happen when two people pass in the hall or meet at the coffee maker. These are ideas that at first jerk sound ridiculous or useless and would never make it to an email or a zoom meeting but running into your buddy at the water cooler you will happily mention in passing. Then your buddy expands on it and suddenly you have a viable solution to a problem or design that just works. 

This casual conversation has been missing for the past couple of years and it's starting to be noticed. 

 

 

I don't disagree with your premise, but thats not the only way information exchange happens.

I throw random thoughts out all the time.  I email them.  I put them on the dry erase board.  I leave people post-it notes.  Half the time when someone asks me about it I've forgotten most of it and end up figuring a better idea based on what was in the information nugget I left.

I don't like talking to people.  I'm quiet.  I listen.  I speak when I have something to say, but I generally don't.  When I am speaking to a coworker it generally isn't about work so that job cross-pollination you're talking about doesn't exist in that form for me.

To clarify - I'm all about strict vacation/work separation.

But if we're only granted a few weeks of vacation a year, I'd rather work half days while on a beach in Hawaii and get to spend two weeks there, vs only getting a week, burning two days for travel, and never really "decompressing". 

For my kids, this allows us (the entire family) to go home to Pennsylvania for a few weeks at a time, without me using more than a week of vacation. I still get to see friends and family in the evening and weekends, but Littleheller gets some quality time with her cousins. 

In reply to Mr_Asa :

There are exceptions to every rule. Humans as a rule are social animals. They work, play, and live better when surrounded by others. 

I think in the long run we will end up with some hybrid system. The company my daughter works for has gotten rid of 50% of their office space. Their plan is for everyone to WFH 1-4 days a week and from the office 1-4 days a week depending on productivity, preference, and training level. 

Brother-in-law is with large bank in Chicago - you'd know the name.  He's been WFH since Covid started (almost 3 years?).  We discuss this at get togethers.

Some of the youngsters have bailed out of Chicago and headed to cheaper areas - some even in their parent's basements in lower cost areas - Florida or Carolinas.  

Bank not always aware of living locations and if they force everyone back they might lose staff plus they dropped some of the high priced office leasing.  

Mr_Asa said:

Toyman! said:

From what I have read, answering services work fine remotely. Design, construction, and professional services don't. It has to do with casual conversation that happens in an office atmosphere that doesn't happen when no one is in the office. Apparently, many of the best ideas happen when two people pass in the hall or meet at the coffee maker. These are ideas that at first jerk sound ridiculous or useless and would never make it to an email or a zoom meeting but running into your buddy at the water cooler you will happily mention in passing. Then your buddy expands on it and suddenly you have a viable solution to a problem or design that just works. 

This casual conversation has been missing for the past couple of years and it's starting to be noticed. 

 

 

I don't disagree with your premise, but thats not the only way information exchange happens.

I throw random thoughts out all the time.  I email them.  I put them on the dry erase board.  I leave people post-it notes.  Half the time when someone asks me about it I've forgotten most of it and end up figuring a better idea based on what was in the information nugget I left.

I don't like talking to people.  I'm quiet.  I listen.  I speak when I have something to say, but I generally don't.  When I am speaking to a coworker it generally isn't about work so that job cross-pollination you're talking about doesn't exist in that form for me.

I also think the whole water cooler or coffee machine talk is over rated.  I learned more just listening in the right meetings than I ever did talking with someone in a casual manner.  I know other people are different, but the casual conversation that leads to some break through isn't that common.  Heck, 90% of the time someone was in my office to BS, no real work was talked about. And most of the time, I was trying to tune out the conversation, as it was just annoying bitching about home stuff.  I knew more introverts than not- so just generalizing everyone as requiring human interaction is, well- just generalization.

And that's why a hybrid system is so important- so that people who don't need random interactions don't have to have them, and the people who need them can get them.

We had a lady that complained the other lady's fingernails were too long and she couldn't stand the constant click, click, click on the keys.  I'm a keyboard pounder and I wail on the keys - she complained about me too.  

My desktop crashed and IT sent me a new one and it came with a quieter keyboard so I told the complainer that I notified IT about her dissatisfaction with me and they sent a quiet KB.  

I don't miss the office BS.  

Toyman! said:

There are exceptions to every rule. Humans as a rule are social animals. They work, play, and live better when surrounded by others. 

How many others are required really varies from person to person though.  I find that as long as my wife and kids are around and I get to meet up with a friend or two on the weekend, I'm happy to WFH full time.

I write software for a living, and it runs on devices that are bolted on racks in a lab somewhere that I never go to.  Like literally never -- I took a tour of the room once about a decade go and I haven't gone back to it since.  I don't even think my badge lets me through the door.  I can do this from my desk in an open plan office where I'm surrounded by other people making noise, or I can do it at home in my home office which has a door I can close, a window I can open, and a stereo that I can listen to my tunes on without needing headphones.  All this and I don't have to sit in traffic for 30 minutes each way.  Why would I ever want to go back?

Datsun310Guy said:

I don't miss the office BS.  

Sounds like it's time to get an IBM Model M! :)

Toyman! said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

That works with the younger generation. Text and messenger chats probably run all day and even into the evening because that's how younger people communicate. 

It's not working very well with the Gen X crowd. What would have been said in passing isn't worth a text message.  

 

Well... I'm 52 and solidly in the middle of Gen X and I work with chat systems fine. 

In my company, the "metrics" are fairly simple: Do projects get done on time and with acceptable accuracy?  Since the mad-dash move to WFH back in Mar 2020, the answer has been largely, "Yes."  Could accuracy be improved? Of course. But we've had that battle since long before WFH became the norm.  As a compromise, managers have requested we work in the office one day per week.

I am usually working with team members in different offices in different states, so me being in the office isn't much different than me being at home.  I'm still working remotely, just from an office location. Only now when I'm in meetings, I have to use a headset whereas I don't at home. 

I tend to work more when I'm at home, as I'm not as schedule bound by commuting traffic. 

Our various offices have already started to downsize to smaller spaces, although most are still in the middle of the leases, so it varies.  Our NJ office was moved by the building owner as we were the only tenant left and they wanted to decommission the building. They made mgnt an offer in our favor. 

Granted, in my case, I'm working at a client construction site and I've been there pretty much daily since Oct and will for the next couple of months (home for holidays, back in Jan). As such, I've "banked" my "in office days" for all of 2023. 

Datsun310Guy said:

We had a lady that complained the other lady's fingernails were too long and she couldn't stand the constant click, click, click on the keys.  I'm a keyboard pounder and I wail on the keys - she complained about me too.  

My desktop crashed and IT sent me a new one and it came with a quieter keyboard so I told the complainer that I notified IT about her dissatisfaction with me and they sent a quiet KB.  

I don't miss the office BS.  

Nobody ever complained (that I know of), but back when I worked in an office with a Dell dome-switch keyboard, one time a guy who mainly worked in a foreign office walked in while I was ninja-coding something and said "Well I can hear [GameboyRMH] is in, nobody else types like that"

You gents are assuming I have a dog in this hunt. I'm just passing on some information from people that have studied this that I have read. 

I've been in my office every day I've worked since the beginning of this. WFH isn't really possible. 

As a 55 YO, I respond to text messages eventually. Odds are high I won't notice the notification so your response may take hours or even days. If you want to have a discussion, call me. I despise wasting time typing on a stupid phone screen when a 30-second conversation will transfer the same info in 1/10 the time. Or better yet email me because I probably don't want to talk to you anyway. Don't expect a response if it isn't business hours or I'm not in my office. 

In reply to Toyman! :

I have less in this than you do- I'm retired.  And still have no intention to find work to do.  But just want to point out that some of the generalizations are not applicable to the extent that they are made.  Or even at all.

In reply to SV reX :

Totally agree.  That was a flat out waste of his time/money.  As a business owner I wouldn't see the value in that at all. 

4 people are pretty easy to please. You can give everybody an executive suite. 

200 people, 100 of which don't want to come back to the office and are your highest performing staff, then you gotta figure out some way of making them happy without giving them all executive suites. 

Where I am, the only people left in the building are the do-nothings, or those that have to be physically on site to work with equipment. Our productivity, collaboration, and quality of work has improved since WFH. Our reviews have been unwaveringly positive and there have been no complaints or rumblings from upper management to rock our boat. On the contrary we have been receiving bonuses and told to keep working in whatever way we feel fits. No more wasting time commuting to an office, just to sit in some miserable cubicle. No more getting pulled into random walks so some suit can bombard you with inane questions in an effort to make themselves look useful. I am sorry, but if you have trouble answering a text message, your time in the workforce is fading fast. The office water cooler was deemed unnecessary and literally removed 2 months ago. WFH has allowed our team to cut the fat and IT FEELS GOOD to cut the fat. My time is valuable to me, both work time and home time. Being forced to go into the office wastes both. I will continue to WFH or I will find a new job. 

alfadriver said:

BTW, Ford was noted in Boost's original post- and I'm not there to see what's going on.  But I also am pretty sure that the WFH is really saving over $1B in planned renovations.  They are certainly not going to restart that.  And that's more like GRM going to a smaller space to run everything.

Thanks for the clarification. I'd heard that, but being 1,400 miles from Detroit metro area has but me further out if the loop haha. 
Glad to hear that Ford has common sense.