Yeah I’ve had a couple of times I’ve set an alarm for 2 AM, got up to attend meeting, and then tried to get back to bed. Those are very infrequent though, like a handful of times per year at most.
I have a global role in my company and I have no magic bullet to solve the time zone issue. I would encourage lots and lots of communication. Example - I have a team member in Hong Kong. I used to try to jam in a call at like 5am my time so he wouldn’t have to work late. It turns out that he actually prefers to have a call at 8 or 9 pm HK time because he can have dinner with his family then just rejoin for a call after that. When I tried to not make him “stay too late” he ended up struggling to commute home in time for family dinner. So don’t assume people’s preferences!
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For many people this ship sailed before the pandemic. As soon as all white collar workers started carrying smart phones with them everywhere and taking their laptops home every night the idea of separating home and work basically died.
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My schedule sure as fuck isn’t 9-5. I regularly do a couple of hours of work from 7-9am… and then do nothing until 2-3pm at which point I’m usually busy until 5-7pm. In the inbetween times I post on UP mostly lol.
This morning I don’t have that 7-9 work because I got all of it done yesterday afternoon which is awesome.
This is how it was for me (with a few more hours of work in there) for quite a while, and it works well for me. But then the entire time started filling in with meetings. I had one day recently where my meetings stretched from 7 AM to 8 PM with only one 30 minute slot meeting free for the entire day. That is obviously not something I can put up with outside of temporary critical crunch times.
I’m also willing to work these flex schedules remotely only. No way I’m commuting into the office, working all day, commuting home, and then taking more meetings at night. I think my company was smart enough to understand that this flex schedule model only works when people doing it are remote the vast majority of their time.
By far the most productive schedule I ever had was:
Work 6-9 focused on my most important tasks.
9-1030 talk to people and answer their questions.
1030-1200 gym
1200 to 100 lunch
100 to 230 personal errands
230-400 check emails from people that I sent stuff to in the morning, prioritize for next day
400+ no work
This schedule works best in the office because I work in downtown Toronto so my gym, the best lunch, and all my errands are walkable from the office.
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Semi-grunch, but I think in many fields there is a productivity increase by having people in-office, but crucially that only exists if your denominator is “company time” and not “personal time.” The problem is that mandating that workers return to office doesn’t increase company time but does increase personal time (or maybe “personal burden”) due to commutes, inability to step away and do tasks around the house, etc. My company (or our clients) will see that I booked 8 or 9 hours a day whether I’m in the office or at home, so to them it makes sense in a very short-sighted way to mandate being in person if they think I’ll have a slight uptick in productivity due to better engagement with my teams, etc.
Thankfully my firm, despite relying on teamwork and networking for our business, has committed to a hybrid approach. We’ve always been a little bit flexible (outside of the demands of specific clients, which might require in-person support) and it seems like that flexibility will increase going forward. They also acknowledged in a recent firm-wide email that a lot of people have moved during the pandemic, and rather than requiring that these folks return to their “assigned” office (using that term loosely) they are just requiring that folks transfer to the closest office.
My employer (global tech company) already had a cost of living adjustment for each country and state. They don’t care where you live in the state, so someone who lives 2 hours out in the sticks has the same pay scale as someone who lives in the city. EDIT: And if you change states or countries, you get the new pay scale in the new location. I think that has to be approved before you make the move. So, yeah, move to Montana, take a nice pay cut to go along with the beautiful view.
The back to the office mandate is more of a suggestion; there is no deadline. But the suggestion is that people should be doing about half time in the office, if they are not full-time remote. Full-time remote will become easier to approve, with the decision pushed down a couple of levels.
I think in practice it will be flexible, and that there is enough momentum for remote work to overcome the previous bias against remote workers. I doubt that anyone who is valued will be refused remote work if they want it, and directors and above who insist on in-person will be the ones getting passed over. Because they will be losing employees to other companies or divisions.
Going back to the office for the first time in 18 months tomorrow. Pretty bummed.
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Do you have to tell them where you’re going?
Maybe just VPN with a Manhattan IP.
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Ive been running the decision around WFH for my company. We are going with 1 day per week. Opt out.
Theres a few folks who always opt out who are also poor performers, so we might mandate they come in as part of their performance plans. Still not decided on that one tho.
Man, I am fucking miserable.
Within 30 minutes of being here Ive found that the office gets unbearably hot during the summer and infested with mosquitos, people are loud as shit talking to each other or on the phone, and I have to shit in a tiny boxed in cubicle around other people instead of in the comfort of my own home, and why? To fill out the same fucking spreadsheets Ive been filling out succesfully at home for over a year now.
What the fuck is happening?
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Sounds like you’re not doing enough teamwork.
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There’s definitely some of that. My wife’s work built out a huge Facebook like building right when COVID hit and it’s been sitting empty for over a year, and they’ve really been pushing people to go back to the office if only to use the brand new building.
Our company is moving in the opposite direction, they ran out of space in their office building a while ago and have had a large work from home group and they’re moving more to a “hoteling” style of setting up requests for cubicles and conference rooms on per day basis to push even more people to work from home
Great typo…
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No, it wasnt. Maybe I should change the following sentence to 'in the comfort of my own bathroom"
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You have to shit in a cubicle at work? That sounds like a deal breaker to me.
I didn’t realize we had an Amazon employee in the forum
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What do you call a tight, cramped bathroom stall? Its a cubicle with a door, no?