There are a lot of news articles about “back to the office”, but they recirculate the same bad ideas. Let’s provide some new ideas for the media to circulate. It may also have the effect of making the office less terrible.
I would like my work computer to do Windows updates lightning quick in the office. It currently takes weeks, in or out of the office. Stopping in for a day makes no difference, so there is no point. Now, if there was a point, I would go in.
What would get you in the office?
A few things that would help:
A 4 day work week with both ends of the day brought in to maybe 10-4 (sorry didnt mean 10-3). Things like going to the bank require me to either run during my lunch break or do it on a day off. 4x10-4 means i have a day and edges of days to do tasks i can’t do on the weekend.
Unlimited PTO. If my tasks are done and I’m paid a salary there is no reason i need to sit around doing nothing. If more work is expected then I’d expect more compensation.
And lastly mandatory cost of living connected to inflation every year. My last job started during the pandemic. In 2 years the effective inflation rate was 15% and yet i was only given 3% over that time while getting good marks on my reviews. That means in that time i was paid a crazy amount less my last day than my first. I dont care about the actual number of dollars I’m paid but I’d like to buy the same number of eggs mext year as this year if I’m expected to do the same amount of work. This shouldn’t be thought of as a bonus, but rather keeping my level of compensation matched woth my level of expectations for my job.
What job do you have that 4x10-3 would be a reasonable option? Coming from someone who works 5x6a-6p (though this week it’s been more like 6a-8p) those hours seem like a fairytale.
Given that they also talk about finishing their work with nothing to do, I’m guessing they work one of those jobs that doesn’t actually need so many employees but has to have them or are held back by the lowest performers.
The idea of “completing all my tasks” is a silly one to me, since my product has an endless stream of work where we can’t do all the things we want to do. If I managed to finish all the things I personally planned to do, that would mean nothing as that’s just my personal plan and there’s a virtually endless backlog. This has been the case for every job I’ve had as a software engineer.
Most employers I think pay for time, anyway, not tasks. Even when salaried, it’s a salary intended based on time you’d generally work. And if this wasn’t the case, many people (myself included) would be penalized for delays.
For a lot of office jobs, fewer hours in the workplace means less opportunities for useless meetings that could be emails and useless emails that could have not been sent
I’m a lead software developer. Finally working a place where we do reasonable schedules with a good amount of padding for problems popping up.
If i wasnt in pointless meetings and focused on actual productive time thats about what most of my team does and we hit all our schedules.
When i worked at Samsung they were doing 4 day weeks and no one was doing 8hr days
That’s more like part-time honestly, doesn’t make any sense. But your hours are intense. I did that 50/60 hours a week years ago, I’ll never do that again. I’m at 35 now and considering asking for a 4 day 32 hours schedule next year. And I WFH full time. I’m done organizing my life around work.
A friend from college does software dev for a place that does 4x10-4 and he said the way the fixed issues was by asking for ROI on everything you do. Need to schedule a meeting? Is it worth the cost of people’s time? If so make sure you get the right people, habe everything planned out before calling it so you get your work done promptly.
At first everyone was like fuck, more crap you have to do. But eventually they figured out that much of their time was wasted on crap no one needed to do. Some people stuck around for an hour or two after work to hang out and others took back their lives. Productivity actually increased because people were not as burned out.
That sounds very satisfying, wow! I swear to god, half the meetings I attend are just soooo unproductive. Talk about this project, where we were, where we are, where we are going. But it always ends up that I have to jog people’s memory, ask why what was supposed to get done didn’t and when it will be. Rinse and repeat. I love that approach, makes people accountable and saves everyone’s time.
As for jogging people’s memories…
So whenever i have to get approval from higher ups that i know they will forget and get annoyed about it i ask that they all stand up and state “i agree / approve to XYZ.” People will laugh and say “really?!?”.
At my last job one of my bosses decided on something that went against what all us in engineering said. So i told him to stand up in front of everyone and say “i acknowledge that this goes against the suggestions by engineering but I would like the team to implement… whatever the feature was.” Two months later he came to a meeting all pissed about how this feature wasn’t working and when he saw me enter the meeting he said “fuck, this is my fault isn’t it?”
That is fucking brilliant!
Ever have someone deny they said it?
Nope not so far. It’s always in a meeting with other people, make it a little awkward and everyone remembers so no one denied it as they know others won’t deny it.
Yeah, part of it is that I’m in a medical field and still in school. Unfortunately my hours are going to get worse with internship/residency before they get better. Even still, 4x10-3 would never (honestly could never) happen in my field.
Oh I see. I’m sorry, you guys in medical really have it fucking hard. Hang in there, and best of luck!