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Return-to-office policies are driving people to sell their homes - even at a loss
(finance.yahoo.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
279 points (97.6% liked)
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My wife's work is making people come back in office, and she's above the 50-mile limit they set. (Not only that, she's worked from home for 10 years now). She brought that up, and they said they were looking into possibly expanding it out. She told her boss if that happens, she's gone, and they lose someone with almost 19 years of experience who literally writes their training manuals on how to do what she does, lol.
The shear stupidity of these people is astonishing. If I ran a company, it would be nothing but WFH, and I would poach so many good workers, lol.
But how will you make sure their every waking moment is devoted to work? Gotta invest in some ridiculous office space and middle managers to crack the whip.
That's the thing - if I'm being forced to come into an office when my work doesn't require it, I am 100% a clock watcher, and outside my scheduled work hours, I an unavailable. You sent me an email at 5:01 PM on Friday? I'll read it at 8:00 AM on Monday.
Take away my flexibility, and I take away yours.
I don't understand the other side of this. I work from home and already do this. Work from home is not 24 hours work unless you let it be that. My clock strikes 5pm and my laptop is turned off.
WFH can enable flexibility on both parts. But, it's highly variable depending on the employer. I might be able to slip out and go to a dentist appointment in the middle of the day without using comp leave, etc. If the employer allows me that flexibility, I may be more willing to be more flexible to respond to an email or a message after hours on occasion. The flexibility is give and take between the employer and the employee.
Now, I understand that not everyone wants that. For me personally with kids to deal with and family things that come up here and there, I much prefer the flexibility and the occasional work evening that's a bit later or the occasional work morning that's a bit earlier. Then I can save my comp leave time for when my kids are out of school or I want to plan a vacation rather than using it up on the small trivial things throughout the year.
There is a guy in our group who had a special arrangement because his wife was sick so they allowed him to WFH regularly as long as he came in for certain things.
After Covid, they decided everyone needed to be back in the office NOW and didn’t want to have to deal with people whining because some people got a special pass that was in place before Covid, so they took it away from him.
Instead of answering the hard (obvious) questions and being irritated for a finite amount of time, they made this guy upend his whole life (he lives many hours away) and that of his family - to return to work on a regular basis.
Failure of fucking leadership right there.
It's quite possible he had no choice since his health insurance was likely tied to his employment. If his wife was also on that insurance, it could be too big of a risk to drop it.
Btw, this is part of the reason the ruling class fights against single payer. Health insurance is just another shackle around the working class' neck.
It wouldn't be if we didn't pay 500 per aspirin
They also take 2-3 months to kick in, and that would also mean potentially resetting a deductible that has already been met, and it's very hard to tell if everything they need will be covered. I'm sure their decisions were not made lightly.
He's likely looking for a better job as we type. But he's got to plan ahead for the jump.
Easy to be brave with your own life but would you kill your wife on this hill? Or your child?
I've set up 'informal working arrangements' for a few people in my team because of family arrangements, health etc.
I might have also told one of the execs that I thought the return to office policy was BS while tipsy one night. He did agree though...
That's a really small bubble. My employer has a 125km range before we can request an exemption to the 2-day-a-week policy.
Hopefully things don't change for your wife!
She openly told her boss that if they tell her to come into the office she will willingly quit the job and forfeit unemployment so they can downsize that headcount and spread around the work to other employees?
Gotta play 3D chess, don't show them your hand. They now have an easy way to fire her on demand without cause and without having a mark on their employment numbers.
Have to go with the angle of: if you make me move you need to pay my relocation costs because you have asked me to move. After all, this isn't new and they have known your home address for 10 years. Make them cover the increased cost or they get to pay unemployment for laying you off. That's the only real angle you probably have anyway that gives them a cost.
Not to mention she wrote a manual on her job so her replacement will have an easy time picking up.
If she’s as petty as I am, the manual will receive a rather intense update prior to her departure.
Better make sure version history is off
*sheer fyi
Shear is a verb
Also two nouns.