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Do you work from home or the office?

Do you work...

  • Fully remote from home

    Votes: 38 39.2%
  • Fully at the office

    Votes: 25 25.8%
  • Hybrid

    Votes: 34 35.1%

  • Total voters
    97
Wow. Stereotype much? Sounds like you have a real problem working with people who you report to.

BTW, executives usually set policy like this, not management types.
It’s not stereotyping at all
The only reason for wanting people to transition back to in person from remote is to gain a sense of control
That’s it and that’s the list
 
Some sales jobs can be done 100% over the phone. Some have to be done 100% in person. Some a mix. It depends. If you have a sales job which requires face to face interaction (like a pharmaceutical rep), that cant be done fully remote from home
Fun Fact: It’s entirely possible to go to a customer’s place from my home. I don’t need to go to the office first.
 
I don't know how you guys pull off the traveling. If I see that a job might require even 5% traveling, it's a no-go.

But I'm a big pet person, so maybe I would feel differently if I didn't have a zoo at my house. I don't think so, though, because it would make it so difficult to get anything done around the house if I was gone all week. It's difficult enough now.
I took a job out of college that required nearly 100% travel. It was well below what my education prepared me for but I wanted to see the country. It was a cool experience and I did get to see and learn a lot. Even made it to Europe. I don't think I'd want to do that, now.
 
What are some jobs I can do while working at home? I have some burnout after 20 years and need a career change. Can I make 100,000 per year while at home?
 
Where do I look for these jobs? I have been out of the job search market for 2 decades.
What are your skills and experience? I’ve been in tech sales, but in 3 vastly different industries, for ~15 years. Comp in my space ranges from $150k/yr to north of $1M/yr.
 
The only people who want people in the office are worthless and insecure management types


That's kind of what happened where I work. Because of the nature of what I do I've been at the office the whole time. But during the pandemic everyone that could work from home did work from home. Sometimes they would need one of the Engineers to come in to the office to look at something on the build floor, so those guys would come in when they had to but otherwise they worked at home. I mean who cares where someone is to work on modeling something in SolidWorks or pulling information from past projects or whatever.

But when things started opening back up they made all the Engineers come into the office. Every so often someone will get permission to work from home, but otherwise they are in the office. And why? Because the guy who used to be Engineering Manager couldn't keep track of what his people were working on and where they were in their projects without being able to just walk up to their desk and see for himself.

Personally, if I were in charge and that was going on we'd have been looking for a new Engineering Manager. And eventually we did. But the HR Manager felt the same way, she thought that people working from home weren't putting in the full time and effort, so she wanted everyone back in the office. Which is nothing more than an admission that she couldn't do her job.
 
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What are your skills and experience? I’ve been in tech sales, but in 3 vastly different industries, for ~15 years. Comp in my space ranges from $150k/yr to north of $1M/yr.

I'm curious... What exactly is "tech sales"? Selling software to companies?
 
During Covid my classified Federal Facility actually allowed people to work from home probably up to 60%. I can’t say I was more productive but I did get things done quickly since no distractions. However at work I might go take a look at something I would not have thought to do at home. I know some of my work force were definitely not more efficient. They basically treated it like vacation with some amount of work to do during a day. That being Said, they usually didn’t do a ton of work in the office.

The thing I hated most about working at home was there really were no designated hours. People thought you were available all the time and would set up calls, etc after hours.

At a point I volunteered to go back into the office full time so I did not have to deal with that. I really did not like changing my zen serenity castle into a place where the office infiltrated.
I work at a highly secure facility also, we have designated buildings that are more secure and do not offer any remote access. The lab of course had to go strict vaccines for everyone or get fired. We lost a lot of people for various reasons, vaccine mandate one of them, but also getting poached by other facilities that offered 100% remote.
 
As usual, you're wrong. Some jobs need to be done in person.
Sure. But there are plenty of middle managers who work at jobs that can be done 100% remote trying to force their staff in office to justify their worthless positions.
 
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Sure. But there are plenty of middle managers who work at jobs that can be done 100% remote trying to force their staff in office to justify their worthless positions.
You're right. I take issue with the word only. I'm upper management and I have advocated plenty of times for employees to work remotely when they needed to. Personally, I can't do it. I had surgery 6 weeks ago. I was going to work from home the week after surgery and lasted 2 days. I felt unproductive, so I went back to the office early. It works for some people and for others it doesn't.
 
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I'm in the academic medical world (Professor, Physician, Researcher, etc.). I employ 40 1.0 FTE and about 40 other faculty/staff I support to some degree. My fellow leaders and I took the road that employees/staff/faculty should be remote early in the pandemic (if they could) and recently encouraged people to go to 50% in the office. It really is not happening. People enjoy working from home; there is an "ease" of doing this. My take: as long if they can be as productive as in the office, then go remote. Unfortunately, many -- based on their job (clinical duties) -- cannot be remote and this causes consternation about "equity". Interestingly, my take on this is that most clinical care can be remote, but the insurers require a physical exam for complete reimbursement of services. Then again all clinical care is relatively under reimbursed considering that much of that reimbursement is going to a (bloated) health care administration, but that is another story.

In sum: reward productivity not the face-to-face time clock.
 
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The reality is that people who are going to take advantage of working at home to screw off are going to find ways to screw off in the office if being there is what their job entails. Most jobs have metrics that will tell the tale as to whether or not you're working while remote.
 
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Sure. But there are plenty of middle managers who work at jobs that can be done 100% remote trying to force their staff in office to justify their worthless positions.
And are such control freaks/authoritarians/old school drips that they would rather subject their employees to a early miserable commute/low productivity than give them a more healthier work life:higher output just to see
Them in person bc they can't get with the times
 
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I'm now one of the retired guys and happy to be one. When I did work (I retired 3 months ago), I was 100% remote and traveled 4 days a week with airline miles and hotel points to prove it. I'm grateful that I have those because my wife and I get to travel largely free on American and in hotels and travel first class. But I don't miss the online meetings, reports and long hours. I paid my dues and it was time for me to sit back and relax while I still can.

If it would have come down to being in an office or being out of a job, I would have chosen being out of a job. I don't like politics in any form and being in an office is mostly a waste of time. I'd work remote or find a way to do something else.
 
It’s not stereotyping at all
The only reason for wanting people to transition back to in person from remote is to gain a sense of control
That’s it and that’s the list
Why do you have to always to be working class hero. It seems like you would support those who say "I hate my job, it is not fun!"

Well buttercup maybe do something else??
 
I'm in the academic medical world (Professor, Physician, Researcher, etc.). I employ 40 1.0 FTE and about 40 other faculty/staff I support to some degree. My fellow leaders and I took the road that employees/staff/faculty should be remote early in the pandemic (if they could) and recently encouraged people to go to 50% in the office. It really is not happening. People enjoy working from home; there is an "ease" of doing this. My take: as long if they can be as productive as in the office, then go remote. Unfortunately, many -- based on their job (clinical duties) -- cannot be remote and this causes consternation about "equity". Interestingly, my take on this is that most clinical care can be remote, but the insurers require a physical exam for complete reimbursement of services. Then again all clinical care is relatively under reimbursed considering that much of that reimbursement is going to a (bloated) health care administration, but that is another story.

In sum: reward productivity not the face-to-face time clock.

Yours isn't the first story I've heard where people who have jobs where they could work from home aren't allowed to because others at the company have jobs where they can't work from home (i.e. physical work in a warehouse).

I've heard that some/many good people end up leaving for a remote job and it ultimately hurts the company, because of the cost of replacing those workers.

My daughter is in preschool (daycare before that) just a few minutes from home. I really like being close, instead of a 45 minute drive. If we are running late in the morning getting her to school, no big deal. If she is feeling sick and needs picked up, I can easily get there. If I decide at 10am I want to brine pork chops for dinner, or marinate some chicken, I can walk down to the kitchen, spend a few minutes getting that done, and happily go back to work.

Not sure I will ever go back to working full time in an office. In fact, if I'm required to be at a specific location for 37.5 hours or more per week, I think I will just change careers. I'd rather drive a snow plow in the middle of the night then sit in an office all day with limited flexibility.
 
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The reality is that people who are going to take advantage of working at home to screw off are going to find ways to screw off in the office if being there is what their job entails. Most jobs have metrics that will tell the tale as to whether or not you're working while remote.

This is 100% correct and I've said the same thing to people often. I had a manager years ago tell me I don't care how many hours people spend in the office, I care about what they get done.

A productive and responsible employee will be productive and responsible at home. A slacker will be a slacker.

I work remote in sales. I actually do miss going into the office sometimes. I miss being able to grab a few guys and go into a conference room to collaborate. Or, to hit up an engineer to get some info and better understand something with a whiteboard session. It's not the same on Teams or over the phone. You don't build the same types of relationships remote.

But, I travel a little more with this job, so remote makes it easier and more palatable. I have to go see customers if I want business, and I often travel without a lot of notice.
 
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This is 100% correct and I've said the same thing to people often. I had a manager years ago tell me I don't care how many hours people spend in the office, I care about what they get done.

A productive and responsible employee will be productive and responsible at home. A slacker will be a slacker.

I work remote in sales. I actually do miss going into the office sometimes. I miss being able to grab a few guys and go into a conference room to collaborate. Or, to hit up an engineer to get some info and better understand something with a whiteboard session. It's not the same on Teams or over the phone. You don't build the same types of relationships remote.

But, I travel a little more with this job, so remote makes it easier and more palatable. I have to go see customers if I want business, and I often travel without a lot of notice.
I find the team building part really fascinating.

I generally try to avoid generational generalizations, but I feel like relationship building via teams is really easy for me. But I’m an elder millennial who spent my teenage years on AIM and chat rooms and forging digital connections. It seems to come harder for some of my older Gen X and Boomer colleagues who never really had that.

Give me a good teams chat and a spicy memes channel and I’m good to go.
 
I find the team building part really fascinating.

I generally try to avoid generational generalizations, but I feel like relationship building via teams is really easy for me. But I’m an elder millennial who spent my teenage years on AIM and chat rooms and forging digital connections. It seems to come harder for some of my older Gen X and Boomer colleagues who never really had that.

Give me a good teams chat and a spicy memes channel and I’m good to go.

I'm a GenX'er and a people person. Love sitting in a room full of people as I enjoy the interaction. Love me a whiteboard to sketch up a diagram that people come up and modify. I know you can do some of that through video conf, but it's not the same... for me anyway.

I get where you're coming from though. I watch my oldest and she's perfectly content chatting via various services online. I hear her talk about Discord and I don't even know what it is. Never cared to find out. The wierd thing is my wife and I both came up in tech industries and for our day were pretty well connected with technology. Our kids laugh at us about stuff we don't know now, and we're not that old.
 
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I'm curious... What exactly is "tech sales"? Selling software to companies?
Yeah. Enterprise software applications mostly. I’m actually in the middleware / SDK (software development kit) business right now. Basically the building blocks that people use to more easily write their applications, and we also provide the infrastructure to maintain it.
 
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That's kind of what happened where I work. Because of the nature of what I do I've been at the office the whole time. But during the pandemic everyone that could work from home did work from home. Sometimes they would need one of the Engineers to come in to the office to look at something on the build floor, so those guys would come in when they had to but otherwise they worked at home. I mean who cares where someone is to work on modeling something in SolidWorks or pulling information from past projects or whatever.

But when things started opening back up they made all the Engineers come into the office. Every so often someone will get permission to work from home, but otherwise they are in the office. And why? Because the guy who used to be Engineering Manager couldn't keep track of what his people were working on and where they were in their projects without being able to just walk up to their desk and see for himself.

Personally, if I were in charge and that was going on we'd have been looking for a new Engineering Manager. And eventually we did. But the HR Manager felt the same way, she thought that people working from home weren't putting in the full time and effort, so she wanted everyone back in the office. Which is nothing more than an admission that she couldn't do her job.
I mean -
It’s harder for managers - because it requires them
To be More organized to ask questions of your team and ensure they are on target .

my current position is very different than my
Last job as an ops manager for a dept. Which meant I pretty much lived at the hospital because I’m a lead by example type .
It more compliance and contacting work .
So I no longer live at the job-
I come up with some ideas and ask questions about the structure of things -
Find efficiency and opportunities for savings -
And then get the stakeholders to fix it , while booking the savings .

there are days I’m not actually doing much
Then there are days I save the hospitals millions
I'm in the academic medical world (Professor, Physician, Researcher, etc.). I employ 40 1.0 FTE and about 40 other faculty/staff I support to some degree. My fellow leaders and I took the road that employees/staff/faculty should be remote early in the pandemic (if they could) and recently encouraged people to go to 50% in the office. It really is not happening. People enjoy working from home; there is an "ease" of doing this. My take: as long if they can be as productive as in the office, then go remote. Unfortunately, many -- based on their job (clinical duties) -- cannot be remote and this causes consternation about "equity". Interestingly, my take on this is that most clinical care can be remote, but the insurers require a physical exam for complete reimbursement of services. Then again all clinical care is relatively under reimbursed considering that much of that reimbursement is going to a (bloated) health care administration, but that is another story.

In sum: reward productivity not the face-to-face time clock.
yeah - our clinical pharmacy rounding team easily went remote during the start of the pandemic (when rounding was limited to only basic necessary personnel)
Just wondered if they continued that - odds are for the
They were efficient because a lot of tiMe was waisted with Rounding
 
I'm a GenX'er and a people person. Love sitting in a room full of people as I enjoy the interaction. Love me a whiteboard to sketch up a diagram that people come up and modify. I know you can do some of that through video conf, but it's not the same... for me anyway.

I get where you're coming from though. I watch my oldest and she's perfectly content chatting via various services online. I hear her talk about Discord and I don't even know what it is. Never cared to find out. The wierd thing is my wife and I both came up in tech industries and for our day were pretty well connected with technology. Our kids laugh at us about stuff we don't know now, and we're not that old.
I’m a fan of whiteboards myself - but more my own sketching out concepts and priorities

But i’m Still a weirdo who will write down a draft on paper with a pencil before typing it up- when writing policies or proposals
 
As usual, you're wrong. Some jobs need to be done in person.
Sure - manufacturing, warehouse distribution, some healthcare , and operational mission critical functions that require being physically present .

if your job is done on a laptop , there is no reason to have to be in the office other than you’re own preference to be there
 
I'm a GenX'er and a people person. Love sitting in a room full of people as I enjoy the interaction. Love me a whiteboard to sketch up a diagram that people come up and modify. I know you can do some of that through video conf, but it's not the same... for me anyway.

I get where you're coming from though. I watch my oldest and she's perfectly content chatting via various services online. I hear her talk about Discord and I don't even know what it is. Never cared to find out. The wierd thing is my wife and I both came up in tech industries and for our day were pretty well connected with technology. Our kids laugh at us about stuff we don't know now, and we're not that old.
And I totally get that! People should be free to chose the work modality that allows them to be the most effective and productive. I get frustrated by the pro-RTO camp though because they often default to "there's no collaboration when remote," and it reflects more an unwillingness to embrace tools for digital collaboration than an actual proven statement about remote work.
 
I've found going into the office is useles unless you have a group read which you want to hammer out on a big screen, witness interviews, or you're dying to waste half your day bsing.
 
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This is 100% correct and I've said the same thing to people often. I had a manager years ago tell me I don't care how many hours people spend in the office, I care about what they get done.

A productive and responsible employee will be productive and responsible at home. A slacker will be a slacker.

I work remote in sales. I actually do miss going into the office sometimes. I miss being able to grab a few guys and go into a conference room to collaborate. Or, to hit up an engineer to get some info and better understand something with a whiteboard session. It's not the same on Teams or over the phone. You don't build the same types of relationships remote.

But, I travel a little more with this job, so remote makes it easier and more palatable. I have to go see customers if I want business, and I often travel without a lot of notice.
Exactly. Word for word. Sometimes it is good to actually see and touch the product and to as you say "collaborate" in person. Or even lunch or dinner. Remote sometimes you are just a cowboy to some, some don't even know you. And there is definitely jealousy. But then again, I put my time in the plant/office aspect too. So I feel I earned where I am.
 
The other part of it, and everyone is different and has their own preferences, but I hated the daily grind of going to the same place day after day at the same time day after day. Of course much of this was before laptops and PC's became the norm.

I like variety. A day visiting the plant/office, a day or 2 of travel visiting customers and a day or 2 at home. I like being able to have things like haircuts, grocery shopping during the week, cutting grass, etc...on my schedule. But also, I also find I am connected almost 24/7/365 now which is partly my fault. Even when on "vacation" I often spend an hour checking emails to make sure no emergencies/disasters are occurring.

I (and I think all of us) need to unplug more.
 
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This thread makes the assumption that most on here work. Guessing there are quite a few retired folks as well as those that abuse the government teat.

I work hybrid. Usually two days at home and three in the office depending on my travel schedule.
They probably get a free Rivals membership too.
 
I mean -
It’s harder for managers - because it requires them
To be More organized to ask questions of your team and ensure they are on target .

my current position is very different than my
Last job as an ops manager for a dept. Which meant I pretty much lived at the hospital because I’m a lead by example type .
It more compliance and contacting work .
So I no longer live at the job-
I come up with some ideas and ask questions about the structure of things -
Find efficiency and opportunities for savings -
And then get the stakeholders to fix it , while booking the savings .

there are days I’m not actually doing much
Then there are days I save the hospitals millions

yeah - our clinical pharmacy rounding team easily went remote during the start of the pandemic (when rounding was limited to only basic necessary personnel)
Just wondered if they continued that - odds are for the
They were efficient because a lot of tiMe was waisted with Rounding
I never understood the insistence on pharmacists on rounds. (my undergrad was pharmacy btw.)
The main medication concerns on post-op or acute admissions are pain meds and diabetes meds. There is an acute pain team and diabetes team. So no additional input needed there. Management of regular medications or anticoagulants and things like that is figured out in advance of admission. Acute changes and issues happen throughout the day and night, not usually bang on 0830.
Therapeutic drug monitoring is usually helpful, but not on labour and delivery. Last week our pharmacist was deathly worried about foetal exposure to gent. It was 22 weeks with ruptured membranes and maternal sepsis and being actively induced. I was worried about getting gent to the foetus too, as in that was the source of the sepsis.
A different perspective doesn't always bring improvement.
Now pharmacist rounds on geriatrics or ICU or Paeds are likely an entirely different dynamic and probably helpful. Just saying my experience likely mirrors yours.
 
Some sales jobs can be done 100% over the phone. Some have to be done 100% in person. Some a mix. It depends. If you have a sales job which requires face to face interaction (like a pharmaceutical rep), that cant be done fully remote from home
Why are there still drug reps?
 
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