My favorite quote:
While employees in the office might kill time messaging friends or flipping through TikTok, remote workers take advantage of being far from the watchful gaze of bosses to chip away at personal to-do lists or to goof off.
Nearly half of remote workers multitask on work calls or complete household chores like unloading the dishwasher or doing a load of laundry, according to the SurveyMonkey poll of 3,117 full-time workers in the U.S.
Oh noes, people actually doing things that are useful for their families instead of even more computer time.
It’s insane that this is even considered strange or surprising. When I work from home, I take longer lunch breaks and I often stop working earlier, but I’m still three times as productive compared to sitting in an office.
At home, I actually get focused time to do something and think. At the office, this is extreamly difficult with all the distractions and noise constantly interrupting my train of thought.
A good boss doesn’t give a shit about whether the workers do other things during work time, as long as the work is done satisfactorily.
At my last office job, years ago when I was young and lived with my parents and had very few financial obligations, I would always ask to clock out and leave whenever I ran out of work to do for the day. It was always busy mornings and slow afternoons. My boss thought I was insane for not wanting to get paid to sit there and fuck around on Facebook (her exact words.) But to me it was worth losing $30-60 to gain back 3-6 hours of my personal life every week.
The boss and most co-workers were great, and the work wasn’t even bad when it was busy, but just physically being present there was soul-crushing.
Most bosses: hmm but if you worked instead of doing small important things for your family you could four double your productivity instead of only triple it!
Most bosses equate having fun with not working and so not having fun with being productive. However, most workers are in a twilight state of not having fun and not being productive.
twilight state of not having fun and not being productive.
Stop putting me on blast, man
The first hour in the office was spent staring at the screen wiggling the mouse from time to time when the screen saver came on because too tired from commuting every day. But, it was at the office so it was productive staring I guess.
Haha it’s so ridiculous that these articles never take into consideration that people in the office don’t have a lot of productive time.
I had the same, I would have a somewhat easy first hour, then spend 2 to 3 hours really focusing and then I’d basically be done for the day and would spend some time idling after lunch until I deemed it was an appropriate time to leave and “work some more from home”.
My best year billability wise was the first year of the covid lockdowns, I managed to generate something like 25% more just because of being able to work from home and cutting back on the travel time to customers and being able to multi-task occasionally when I had a quiet day for a customer. I’m glad I live in the Netherlands, hybrid/remote working seems like it’ll remain over here at least.
And they they go on about the free flow of ideas, innovations and cooperation. Please, we were all sitting there with headphones trying to isolate ourselves to get anything done because some manager would always be on a loud phone call and using a meeting space to work was forbidden.
Driving to customers or flying to the other side of the world for a meeting was such a big time sink.
It also reminds me of the story of Rotterdam harbour where they just couldn’t find any people anymore. Turns out that the cost of commuting was so high, people made more money doing lower paid work closer to home.
Turns out that the cost of commuting was so high, people made more money doing lower paid work closer to home.
This is true for a lot of people everywhere. It’s often ridiculous the amount of time and money lost from commutes that gets forgotten about.
For me commuting outside the city costs at least an hour of time every day, and $1+/hour in fuel weekly that I don’t get paid. For me WFH is like a $1.50+/hr raise that is far more convenient and stress reducing than a better paying job.
Ah the bullshit justifications of open office plans. If I want free communication with my coworkers I’ll go communicate with them. If I need to be left alone to focus let me
Starring in your own office movie.
Office Space is a documentary
Gotta love how the articles frames it. While at work people “kill time” with tik tok but at home they “goof off” folding laundry
Corpo propaganda and normies larp it.
I feel like they’re just trying to use variety in their wording and either configuration would have upset you
I can tell you it wouldn’t… We usually do not have multiple words because they are completely and 100% interchangeable.
It is the exact same message manipulation when a cop outright murders someone the headline often says something super tangential like “Perp lost life in altercation with police”… words matter and you’d expect journalist to know this
I still think it’s overly cynical and not likely to be a conspiracy in this case but I do agree that it’s a general concern, highlighted especially now with the genocide in Gaza, so I don’t think you’re wrong to feel that way. I’m still choosing to be charitable in this case, however.
I still think it’s overly cynical
Definitely could be… I know this of myself and I have been working on it
I think many of us feel that way, given how the world has evolved in my adult life I don’t blame anyone.
Killing time implies you have time to kill. Goofing off implies avoiding work you need to do.
I’m killing time right now because there’s nothing to do but yet I can’t go home and clean up the clutter that’s accumulated from being stuck at work all day with nothing to do.
And in the office there are people who literally hang out at the coffee machine for 30-60 minutes at a time, talking to everyone who comes by under the guise of “networking”.
The media gotta stop reporting on the laundry like it’s the equivalent of stealing from the company.
It’d be cool if the media did a piece about how companies are stealing the excess labor of their employees. It will never happen though because “the media” also steals the excess labor from it’s employees.
Maybe the solution to return-to-work is manufacturing a bunch of fake news about remote workers being significantly less likely to unionize and more likely to take an ass pounding from corporate overlords?
The thing is, you don’t even need to manufacture a good story. You could tell the true story of how companies have slashed overhead by reducing the amount of office space needed or how employees working from home turn out to be just as if not more productive than those working in the offices and happier with their jobs besides.
There were companies planning to move more jobs to work from home even before the pandemic because it’s a model that just makes more sense for a lot of positions. The return to office crowd could be beaten simply by pointing out the for most positions, working on-site is a needless expense. The problem is, the media isn’t willing to tell that story.
The real estate tycoons who lease out the office buildings are the reason for the return to office push by the media. They must continue to justify their existence at all costs.
I worked with people who could easily spend 30 minutes scrolling social media while pooping.
Don’t shame my post-meeting decompression.
We have people here working maximum 1 hour per day, in the home office they can at least not stop others from working.
So, I work in a maintenance position that really isn’t possible to do remotely but we have a fair amount of desk work too. We’re in the process of setting up a workstation to program and new head ends for our systems. The first thing on everyone’s list when we were deciding on a location was “as far from everyone else as possible” because we all know that other people being around to make small talk is a distraction that will easily double the time it takes to get this shit done.
In every maintenance position I’ve had, every one of us has had our own secret workspaces where most other guys didn’t know to look for us just so that we could get some desk work done in peace. Co-workers are a distraction more often than they are a help and I think we’ve all known this for years.
You think that’s bad, wait until you hear about the shareholders and landlords.
They dont even have to pretend to work to get paid.
There is a class difference in there though… Some people own while others slave
Thats exactly what I mean. My aim is to point out the ridiculousness of them trying to moralise it, by making the people who ease off a little bit to put to washing on out to be lazy and undeserving of their wages etc.
That wrath for people not working or “slacking off” slightly while getting paid is only reserved for poor people.
The regime relies on plebs larping this bushit.
If tomorrow every fucking wage slave got a pair of balls and started acting like daddy capitalist, half of issues would be solved and parasites would be punished.
But instead of we got bootlickers serving as regime enforcers 🤡
I’m not sure I get what you’re saying tbh. I’ve probably read it wrong but it almost seems like you’re saying the way out of capitalism is to capitalism harder.
There is nothing capitalism about advocating for yourself but some how regime was able to convince people that only capitalist are allowed to do it and peasants agreed to larp at disadvantage to themselves… Adult people 🤡
If only someone would’ve thought to that and tried it before. It could’ve saved everyone so much time.
Sounds like they take micro breaks, which is not only healthy, but can help with productivity.
Is anyone complaining about this?
Billionaires whose commercial real estate investments are tanking
Those refis gonna have to happen but fed lowered the interest rates for them… These clowns never lose as we are always there to bail them with policy or straight hand outs of cash lol
Supply and demand is a fickle bitch.
Excuse me while I go cry a river for the real estate tycoons who will have to sell off their yachts.
Managera who have nothing better to do
When I used to work in office:
- Wake up at 7am, get ready to go and take a 1 hour commute in, usually there by 9:00
- Try to find parking, walk to office, morning break room coffee and chatter, usually settle in around 9:30
- Get interrupted multiple times by desk drive bys
- Take 2 hour lunch around noon with multiple coworkers because why not
- Get interrupted multiple times by desk drive bys
- Leave at 4 to try and avoid some traffic
Now that I work from home:
- Wake up and hop online to work, usually settle in by 7:30am
- No desk drive by interruptions
- Eat at my desk during meetings or while simultaneously working
- Sometimes start laundry or something during the day, but who cares?
- Usually work later than 5
Every time I get asked about going back into an office my response is “Why would you want me to be far less productive?”
To collaborate with the team, of course…
My friend’s job has hybrid RTO and it basically means half the team is still out when you’re in the office so they still meet on Zoom/Teams, haha…what a waste
Same here… we get one day in the office, I have tried to make the best of it but nobody cares, I find myself there with less than half the team to:
-
hop around until I get a desk where everything I need works
-
get interrupted by people not on my team all the time because why not say hi
-
get complaints because all my meetings are Teams anyway and everyone is mad they hear a crowd when I am not muted
-
Lose 45 mins of my life getting ready and another 1.5 in traffic (round trip) to work less in the office
You are missing the best part, the highly increased chance of dying from the most dangerous form of modern day travel.
I miss risking my life every day for a job.
-
The other reality is that even with full RTO, in a position like mine, I’m working with groups spanning about 12hrs of time zones. I’m not seeing half the group anyway, so what’s the point of going in when everyone is still taking the calls at their desks?
So that we feel vindicated in actually owning your productive time. So that management can show they add value by watching you work.
Jokes on you, I shop and shower while at the office as well.
Exactly this. The office doesn’t magically make people work undistracted all day for that sweet sweet 110% productivity.
Your office has a shower?
Yes. People who go to the office by bicycle can take a shower, for example.
That’s awesome!
My last office had a gym and a shower. It was awesome back when I to was “between wells” at my house and so didn’t have any water pressure for a couple of weeks.
(Oh the glorious day when my new well got hooked up and I could take a bath in my own home again!)
Yes. It gets used by people commuting long distances by bike and people who work out during lunch, or for anyone who needs to shower for other unknown reasons.
If anything, one should absolutely take care of mundane tasks with downtime between productive tasks. If their workflow allows for short breaks, it doesn’t make a difference to the employer if nothing is done or an unrelated task is done.
They pay people to complete tasks for their corporation. They don’t own the worker’s bodies or minds due to the virtue of providing a paycheck.
This concept of whole ownership of people really is baked into US social consciousness.
I can even imagine that some household chores can be done while “actively” working, like when you’re in a call and just listening to the other parties.
Yeah the US is a sick country. They think money and power is the meaning of life. And it’s very obviously not.
Maternity leave policy is all you need to know about the nature of the regime.
SAVAGE
This article can be applied the same way to Office workers. No they’re not working 100% of the time. What’s a problem is if they’re exceedingly unavailable or underperforming at their job and affecting others.
I stay at home to work on cool projects and I go to the office to get through mountains of boring administrative tasks and socialize. The whole time at work issue being discussed isn’t as important as labour productivity.
I’m constantly preaching that “we don’t work in a widget factory, there is only the work there is to do, and if it’s all done, wtf are you complaining about? Asses in seats does not correlate to work completed. As long as we’re available to complete tasks, you’re getting what you’re paying for.”
Shit, my desk used to be next to the kitchen. I made lunch and ran/emptied the dishwasher at the office and the bosses didn’t whinge about how I spent my time. I also did a bunch of my ideation on the office couch.
But do the same things in my home and it’s a problem? That tells me what the real issue is: the threat of agency.
My management prizes my ability to write complex things ina professional and easily digestible manner. However part of that process might look like I’m doing nothing at all, while I’ve got a half a draft written and I’m just sitting there for an hour and a half doing sudoku puzzles while what I’ve written vs what I need to say percolates in my brain. And yet I have to be cautious about it because some of them are convinced we work in a widget factory, where ass in seat and hands on keyboard equals work produced.
Fuck this corporate propaganda.
Work from home and be happy.
Businesses during covid: we are seeing an all time high in productivity from our workers due to them working from home, this is amazing!
Businesses after covid: these people working from home are nothing but lazy leeches who probably arent even doing their job and are robbing us of our money, despite all our previous statements to the contrary and verifiable statistics counter to this narrative we’re now pushing!
despite all our previous statements to the contrary and verifiable statistics counter to this narrative
This was by far the most frustrating part of the RTO push at my old company. The unofficial motto I was always told was “Show me the data”, as it was basically impossible to push for any sort of decision without solid data to back it up, even if everyone in the group thought it was a good idea.
When RTO was announced and the big all people town hall was held, multiple group heads stood up and asked the execs why they were doing this, and what data they had to back it up. Literally, and I quote from one of the execs, “Well, we don’t really have any, but we feel that people will be more productive, will be sharing more ideas and innovating when in the office.”
Yes, the executive at a multi-billion dollar automotive company literally said with a straight face to thousands of engineers who’d been working almost entirely from home for the past 3 years “This decision is based on feels, not reality”. Even better was since there was already an initial non-mandatory RTO push, some absolute chads even interrupted them to pull up hard data showing they had been tracking productivity since the RTO push, and their group members were significantly less productive on days they were in-office. Not only that, but they also showed there literally wasn’t the office space to fit everyone. The exec just hand waved it away and said “I’m sure we have plenty of desks for everyone”.
It’s absolutely infuriating seeing these people getting paid millions, if not billions, to suck so hard at basically everything.
I worked at a different company that was big on “data driven decisions”. They had tshirts made that literally said something like"data > feelings"
Before the pandemic, someone mentioned that studies were showing 4 day work weeks were effective and made people happier. The CEO just said “Yeah we’re not doing that.” Didn’t read the article or the study. Just nah.
After the pandemic, they were making people go back into the office. Same energy.
So what I’m saying is management and leadership are often just gutfeel idiots. Expensive babies.
It was never about RTO or Productivity. It was all about getting people to quit to reduce the bottom line. Otherwise they would have had layoffs and would have looked bad and cost more money in severance. It’s all just trying to save money.
Do office workers actually work? No, but they make coffee, collaborate, and network.
While experiencing overwhelming anxiety that their boss is going to come around the corner and chew them out for not working.
Collaboration is actually useful. The phrase you’re looking for is synergizing the cross-functional modalities.
Alright stop, collaborate and listen
Don’t forget smoking.
Offices still have smokers, right? The nearly retired old lady who smokes two packs a day and is way too familiar with the young men?
I’ve not worked in an office in like a decade, so I don’t know.
Yeah she’s still there and her name is Pam. Really interesting lady when you get her talking.
Oh yeah theyre interesting and usually fun.
It’s the bitch who doesn’t smoke who hangs around trying to fish out rumours who’s not a good time.
My coworkers recounting the oh so cute exploits of their oh so cute grandchildren in excruciating detail is very productive, I’m sure. Definitely makes the extra long commute worthwhile for me.
In a lot of meetings I’m expected to be in I mostly just listen and jump in to answer specific questions. When working from home I like to be active with chores during the meetings, I’ll just take them on my phone. Sometimes I do motorcycle maintenance! It helps me concentrate much better than watching talking heads.
