re: Forbes Piece: Flexible Work Was The Promise. The Infinite Workday Is The Reality

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One thing during Covid WFH I did was learn how to maintain all the chemical balance in my pool and took over the weekly maintenance stuff rather than continue having a service do it. Quickly found myself tending to it daily, even multiple times a day cleaning and scrubbing, as a way to outside and break away a bit.

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Yeah, that's the thing about WFH. If you're doing things right, you're just as productive work-wise, and then you're using those free times between meetings or when you don't have any scheduled task to either truly relax where you're not being watched or be productive in your home-life.

That beats just sitting there at a desk all day, five days a week, rotting and trying to make small-talk with colleagues when you've run out of small-talk talking points by Wednesday hahaha

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we’re working in a constant state of interruption.

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This sums it up quite well.

It's an unpopular opinion, but working at the office was better.

I work mostly remote and try to handle emails and other stuff when lever they come up. I also may be found out on a walk at 2:00 in the afternoon on a nice day.

The flexibility goes both ways and I like it.

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Microsoft found that the average worker now receives 117 emails and 153 Teams chats every day.

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I think this is largely a function of not being able to have quick face-to-face conversations anymore.

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And nowhere is that urgency more visible than in how we meet. Meetings were already a pain point in many organizations even before Covid. Back then, calendar and conference room capacity governed meeting planning. Now that digital tools have removed those limits, we simply add everyone—and move even faster.

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Evening meetings are up 16%, and a third of workers return to email after 10 p.m.

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I think this is also largely due to the lack of quick face-to-face conversations. Pre-COVID, there were many times when I would be talking to someone, need a third person’s input, and simply walk over and ask them. After a 3-5 minute conversation, it’s done.

Nowadays that same discussion involves at least one person who is remote or located at another office. Instead of a quick conversation in person, someone sets up a Teams call. Probably for 30 minutes. Since we’ve reached a point in work culture where you need to schedule any conversation with 2+ other people on the calendar, everyone’s calendar is packed. Which then means it’s harder to schedule meetings that are actually critical and require multiple attendees. That leads to more of those meetings scheduled late or during lunch.

Another factor I’ve noticed is globalization. Technology has made global collaboration a lot easier, but you’re still dealing with time zones.

Most of my evening calls are either because of folks overseas, or because we needed multiple managers on a call and their calendars are completely full.

I work in the oilfield and am constantly working after hours. It’s 24hr support in our contract so 2am they have an issue I get up and login, workday still starts at 6:30 everyday. My boss is cool so if you take time back when you need to but sometimes I wish I was paid hourly

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think this is largely a function of not being able to have quick face-to-face conversations anymore.

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also when I do go into the office other than getting some peace and quiet I go into a conference room and pull up teams and everyone else is virtual so it's just me being weird in a conference room with nobody else in there.

I'm like what's the point of being here?

My home office is nearly 100 yards from my house, so I don't have that issue.

It's just more productive to have the people physically in the same building and not hogging up time on pointless meetings. In the office environment, you can handle over a 5 minute huddle what now requires a gap in everyone's calendar (yea right) everyone accepting the time slot (yea right) and everyone being mentally present and ready to solve a problem (yea right).

I was always a "hybrid" worker so my office attendance would be the same now that it was in 2014-2019, if anybody was actually there. It's created the ridiculous culture of perpetual meetings. If my teams dot is red, it means I'm being productive today.

Like I always have, I decline the shite out of meeting invitations. No agenda? Declined. No clear need for me to be there? Declined. No idea what this is about? Declined. Internal only when I have customer work to do? Declined. You'd be amazed at how many people get pissed off about it, but those same people do nothing else. They aren't held accountable for shite because their performance objectives were set by someone who doesn't actually see the work going on and has no idea what true productivity looks like.

WFH might be fine for people who's function exists purely in cyberspace but when it's directly adjacent to boots on ground projects, it's awful.

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Yeah, that's the thing about WFH. If you're doing things right, you're just as productive work-wise, and then you're using those free times between meetings or when you don't have any scheduled task to either truly relax where you're not being watched or be productive in your home-life.

That beats just sitting there at a desk all day, five days a week, rotting and trying to make small-talk with colleagues when you've run out of small-talk talking points by Wednesday hahaha

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I'm too ADHD for this. I'll get sucked into house tasks and lose focus on work. I need the separation. Neither home life/work nor work work bleed into each other much.

But to each his own.

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In my experience, I've found that the people in my office want to work from home moreso because of the freedom that it gives you to sort of do whatever you want rather than them "being more productive" at home. I work for the State, and June 30 is the last day of WFH per the governor. Starting July 1 everybody has to be back in the office full time. And people here are freaking the frick out about it. It's so weird to me that they are so bent out of shape because they have to come back to work.

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Because commuting to and from an office is pointless. Sitting in an office is pointless

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My home office is nearly 100 yards from my house, so I don't have that issue.

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that would be so nice. Our CEO very very VERY well off. When I'm on a teams call with him there's a Costco folding table to his right constantly piled with paperwork and messes all around him on the floor.

For some reason this amuses me and makes me feel better about my own little humble working niche.