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  #1  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 6:25 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is online now
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The future of work (from home)

We're two years in and people know whether they love it or hate it. What was your lifestyle/workstyle before the pandemic and what do you envision it to be after the pandemic?

ETA: I tried to add a poll but didn't create it in enough time. But other questions... If you worked in an office at least 1 day/week before pandemic:

Did you live in a city before pandemic and take public transit to work?
Did you live in a suburb before the pandemic and take public transit to work?
Did you mostly drive to work before the pandemic?

Last edited by iheartthed; Feb 5, 2022 at 8:32 PM.
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  #2  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 6:32 PM
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I started my job during Covid so it's been WFH for me all along but we are supposed to return to office on July 5th. I think we will go hybrid and possibly WFH down the line.
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Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 8:01 PM
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I work for a utility company so I kept going to the office the entire time. Lots of our company worked from home and remoted in but I'd say 10 percent stayed on site. I live in a close in neighborhood and drove, took the bus or rode my bike. The office has been open again since last June but now they are offering flex schedules or 100 percent remote with a pay cut. I work in a office district near downtown right next to a dead mall. Its been over run by hobos and crazy ppl. Its turned into a office worker ghosttown and id say our office is 1/2 filled max. Im eagerly waiting to see what the long term trends are because were really having so livability issues in the cbd. Lots of businesses have either closed or relocated to the suburbs because downtown is not considered safe anymore.
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  #4  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 8:23 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
We're two years in and people know whether they love it or hate it. What was your lifestyle/workstyle before pre-pandemic and what do you envision it to be after the pandemic?
i had a regular old 9-5 M-F office job pre-pandemic.

I got laid-off pretty early on in the shit of 1st lockdown.

for now, i've just been freelancing work on a project by project basis out of my home.

but i really don't like WFH. i'd much rather be in an office environment. at least some of the time. it might sound corny, but i kinda miss working with other people, face to face, in the same room, bouncing ideas around. creativity just seems to spark better between people when you're physically with them than it does over a virtual meeting. at least it does for me.

however, with two young kids and all of the unrelenting bullshit of remote "learning" over the past 2 years, the notion of going back to a rigid 9-5 M-F office job now seems a little absurd.

if i had some level of confidence that remote "learning" was now officially in our rearview mirror, i'd start looking for a conventional "real" job outside the home, but with the way all of this stupid covid BS keeps creeping back at us every. single. fucking. time. i think it's "over", i feel sorta stuck in this in-between limbo.




Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Did you live in a city before pandemic and take public transit to work?
Did you live in a suburb before the pandemic and take public transit to work?
Did you mostly drive to work before the pandemic?
i lived in a city neighborhood pre-pandemic and still live in the same home now. my old office job was in an inner-ring suburb (evanston) and i was a pretty committed, 4-season bike commuter (~8 miles one-way), though i did occasionally take transit to work on the stupidly brutal winter days with -15 windchills and/or a foot of freshly fallen snow.

one of the reasons i'd like to get back to a "real" job with a commute is because i really, REALLY, REALLY do miss bike commuting. sure, i can go out and ride my bike any old time i want to now, but it's just not the same. particularly on these winter days. back when i HAD to be at work, i just manned the fuck up and got on my bike and rode to work. but now that i don't HAVE to be anywhere, ever, it's way too easy to make excuses.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Feb 5, 2022 at 11:53 PM.
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  #5  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 8:30 PM
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My previous office stayed open the entire time. My current job offers 1 day a week WFH.

I like being in an office, though I don't mind working from home occasionally.
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  #6  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 8:54 PM
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Well put, Steely. WFH and this never ending limbo has leveled irrevocable harm to the fabric of our society. We have only begun to see its effect, but it will be lasting. Humans are social creatures, period.

I never had to WFH. And I’m glad.

I need to meet and see people, look them in the eyes.
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  #7  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 9:05 PM
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I switched jobs around the peak part of the pandemic last year but shifted to a hybrid schedule (3 days a week in the office, as arranged by the CEO) once the state opened back up on June 15. When the delta variant emerged and started wreaking havoc, I returned to WFH for a few months until average daily cases had dropped and plateaued. This time I didn’t follow a set schedule (nor did most of my colleagues), only going in when I wanted to (i.e. to meet colleagues in person) or felt like my presence was needed. Now it’s become a cycle with Omicron, although thank goodness this variant is less severe than delta and a third of County residents have gotten booster shots. I’ll be going back to the office in two weeks for special meetings and then perhaps on a regular basis in March or April, depending on the numbers.

I commute to work via public transit, hardly ever touching anything that doesn’t belong to me without immediately sanitizing my hands. I enjoy being in an office environment, even though my commute is about 90 minutes door-to-door. But I also like the extra 1.5-2 hours of sleep that WFH affords me. Ultimately, I think a *flexible* hybrid schedule is most ideal for me.
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  #8  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 12:01 AM
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I've always had a flexible work arrangement, with the ability to work from home or elsewhere as long as reasonable (obviously, when I need to be in the lab or in the field or go to a conference it's harder to work from home, but when I'm doing computer things I theoretically can). My first long-term bout of working from home was in 2014, my last year of grad school when I moved to Chicago so that my wife could attend social work school here. I went back to Boston monthly to do lab things and talk to people in person, but it was isolating and it sucked.


Since I started at UChicago I'd occasionally work from home, but not super often (mostly like, if I had a dentist's appointment in the middle of the day or my wife was sick or something). I don't need to be in the lab all of the time, but it's nice to be able to talk to students in person and such (explaining how to do things over Zoom or Slack is not as fun). But since all the experiments I work on are dispersed around the world, all my telecons forever have always been on Zoom (and before that... shudders... WebEx) .

Soon after COVID started and the university mostly shut down, I was given "essential lab access" so I could go into the lab as needed, but was not allowed use my office, so I only went in sporadically as required. Eventually, we were allowed to go to offices but with single-occupancy, which was kind of annoying to coordinate in my then shared office, and by that point I had moved and had a much better home office/lab in a walk in closet, so I still mostly just went in when I needed to do something in lab (though this was increasingly often, as we were getting ready to do a field deployment in Greenland).

After I got back from Greenland last summer, the rules were relaxed (there was even a week or so where we didn't have to wear masks in shared offices lol), but I was given my own office soon thereafter, making it a moot point. Since then, I'd been going in on average 4 times a week (one day a week has managed to become almost all telecons so I often just stay home for that). My commute is pretty pleasant (5 minute walk to train station, 15 minutes on the metra electric, 15 minute walk or a faster Divvy bike ride to the office), and I'm generally more productive at the office.

I'm on paternity leave now, so obviously not going in for a while. I may WFH more often at the beginning to make things easier on my wife (who will be staying home with the little one, while trying to continue to write on the side).

What I'm most excited about is that it looks like we'll have an in-person collaboration meeting at the end of the month where a bunch of my colleagues will be traveling to Chicago (originally, it was going to be at UH-Manoa, but we decided given the current travel circumstances and university policies, Chicago is easier for most people and I wouldn't have been able to go to Hawaii with a newborn anyway). This summer, there may even be in-person conferences! (though I probably won't go somewhere too exotic since I don't want to be away from the baby for too long).
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  #9  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 4:26 AM
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Live in the city and pre covid was work from home two days a week. Now it is 100% work from home and hope it stays. Love it. No commutes on overcrowded trains, get simple things done like laundry, grocery shopping and I get back the commute time. My main life is outside of work and I get back a lot of my main life time working from home.
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  #10  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 3:06 PM
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^ Yet somehow mass transit systems are expected to defy gravity and keep rolling along with no passengers.

At one end you have the “I want the transit system to keep running, even though I never use it” idealists, and at the other end: cold, hard reality—both are on a pretty big time collision course.
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  #11  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 6:21 PM
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Well, fewer passengers, not none. And most of the drop is work trips, meaning peak commute times. Saturdays (as I experienced yesterday) tend to still feel like Saturday volumes in my area.

I worked in an office 8-5 pre-Covid, eventually left during Covid, and now freelance from home. I love the freedom. When workload allows I can exercise (in an empty fitness room), buy groceries, take a walk, or meet a friend. I save 25 minutes twice a day vs. the walk to work and related preparation.
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  #12  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 7:13 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is online now
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Well, fewer passengers, not none. And most of the drop is work trips, meaning peak commute times. Saturdays (as I experienced yesterday) tend to still feel like Saturday volumes in my area.

I worked in an office 8-5 pre-Covid, eventually left during Covid, and now freelance from home. I love the freedom. When workload allows I can exercise (in an empty fitness room), buy groceries, take a walk, or meet a friend. I save 25 minutes twice a day vs. the walk to work and related preparation.
Here in NYC it's starting to feel like "peak" commuter days are just reduced to midweek. Last Wednesday felt nearly like pre-COVID commute to work, but other days of the week were noticeably quieter.
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 7:27 PM
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Live in unincorporated rural area and have to drive hours to do anything. WFH would be great but I do manual labor stuff, so there's just no way and that's cool if you office types can do it though.
There's no reason to flip my lid over it, y'all are lucky.
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 7:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Well, fewer passengers, not none. And most of the drop is work trips, meaning peak commute times. Saturdays (as I experienced yesterday) tend to still feel like Saturday volumes in my area.
That's still not good in the long run. Transit authorities will have to exist in a new reality where people no longer rely on them (as much) with WFH which means a huge dent in revenue streams.
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  #15  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 9:55 PM
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I live about a mile from downtown Cleveland, prior to the pandemic my husband and I drove into work (my coworkers informed me I’m never allowed to complain about my 10-15 minute commute, especially since I get dropped off curbside ). Hours were 9-5, Monday through Friday. I’m now at a staggered schedule of three days in the office, two days WFH.

I’m in my 28th year as a graphic designer, most of that being in downtown - I’ve been surprised how much I really enjoy and thrive with the WFH setup. Let me put it this way - my favorite way to spend free time is taking photos, I’m a published author of a book about architecture in downtown Cleveland, my go-to weekly sushi lunch spot is going on 21 years in business, etc. You’d think I’d be pining for being back in the office every day but nope. It’s alright going into the office but those days are actually less productive for me. I’m an early riser so on WFH days, I’m logging on at 7am and logging off until 5ish when my husband gets home. In office days, it’s 8:30am and logging off before 5.

Specific to my work, I detest physically being in meetings because my role is like the last runner on the relay team. I don’t negotiate or cut deals or anything like that; I make whatever the sales/service teams want to present “look pretty”. Sitting there trying to take notes on a laptop while they’re yammering and then getting back to my desk with the dual monitor setup and reconstructing all that into the collateral/presentation? With WFH, they can have their meeting while I’m remoting in and the entire time, the edits that used to happen after the meeting, I’m making in real time. Instead of “email us a draft when you made the updates”, I’m saying “okay, everything is updated, log into the shared document”. It’s more efficient, more collaborative, etc.

Lifestyle-wise, as others mentioned, the freedom to not have to cram everything into a few hours outside 9-5? Priceless. Getting to have my Pug napping and chilling out and providing moral support? Are you kidding me?

Being Gen X, I was raised to be self reliant and okay being on my own. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy getting together with people but I’ve never been one to hang out with coworkers outside of work very much. But some of the people I work with are crawling out of their own skin because they are so crazy attached to the in-person factor; I get it but that’s not me, never has been. I’m very happy where I am, but if I ever look elsewhere, the WFH arrangement is huge for me.
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 10:06 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JManc View Post
That's still not good in the long run. Transit authorities will have to exist in a new reality where people no longer rely on them (as much) with WFH which means a huge dent in revenue streams.
Yeah transit agencies (particularly commuter rail) will need to adapt to be less rush-hour focused and have a better all-day product. It sort of cuts both ways to some extent because people who WFH people may have less use for a car (or as many cars) if not needed for commuting, though this probably only matters in a handful of cities where not owning a car is practical.
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Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 12:03 AM
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Last edited by Sam Hill; Feb 7, 2022 at 4:16 PM. Reason: Broke my own rule against veering into politics
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  #18  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 12:33 AM
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Over in the Denver thread there has been talk about how certain buildings are switching (or should switch) from office to residential. It’s not practical in many cases due to the layout of plumbing, etc., but I’d like to see it happen.
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  #19  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 1:15 AM
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I love WFH. For as long as I have to work a typical office job I don't ever want one where I'm required to be in even just one day a week. An option? Sure. Requirement? No. I've seen already people can be promoted, fit in culturally, and become friends outside of work all doing the job remotely. The same great ideas get sparked in meetings and the work is able to get done.

Sometimes I miss the things we used to do throughout the day. Going on random coffee runs or lunches with coworkers. When we use to walk through downtown trying to plate office chicks (other companies of course) and that's how I met my fiance actually. I agree people are social and need to be around one another, and for many going to work was their social life, or at least a big part of it. Not going into the office to talk/gossip/whatever has taken a chunk out of people's lives. But if you have a strong social life outside of work not going into the office really isn't a big deal, in my opinion.

I feel bad for transit though. I can see how maybe urban transit can still be expanded because of higher densities and more traffic movements in the cities. But these suburban commuter rail systems are going to hurt moving forward. The station I used before WFH was the norm was full 3-4/5 levels by 7am. Now it barely gets to level 3 after 9am when I pass by. It's sad in a way but part of the changes in the world.
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  #20  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 1:48 AM
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I'm on a hybrid and have been since the start of the pandemic. Problem is, social services requires field work and seeing clients at residences, so I'm out at odd hours of the night and weekends when need be. I'd say about 70 to 75% of my work is done at home.

Most of my administrative work (notes, case plans, office visits) are done telephonically/Zoom/Duo from home. My gf works nights at a hospital so I get to see her more when I'm home. Its dumb, but because of our different schedules, being able to have lunch at home together is the great equalizer for me. I live in the suburbs of a small city where the commute before the pandemic was maybe 10-15 minutes at most.

My department moved buildings in April 2021 and we technically downsized to where almost everyone shares offices and work spaces. We have meeting rooms for clients, but nobody has a dedicated office. Its fine when there's not a whole lot of people there, and the theory behind the move was to actually get people out of the office except for when they need to meet with clients.
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