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  #1  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 6:25 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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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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  #3  
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 7, 2022, 5:49 AM
dave8721 dave8721 is offline
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
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.
Did anywhere go back to remote learning? I mean pretty much the only places that did it at all this year that I know of were Chicago and NYC. Didn't NY's new mayor make it pretty clear there not going to remote any more. I mean like 99% of the US went full time back to school like 1.5 years ago.
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  #6  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 3:23 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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Originally Posted by dave8721 View Post
Did anywhere go back to remote learning? I mean pretty much the only places that did it at all this year that I know of were Chicago and NYC. Didn't NY's new mayor make it pretty clear there not going to remote any more. I mean like 99% of the US went full time back to school like 1.5 years ago.
New York hasn't had remote-only learning since last winter. I believe they did offer a remote option after so many kids did not return after the Christmas break.

Detroit schools went 100% remote following the Christmas break, and only just returned to in-person last week.
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  #7  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 3:46 PM
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Nothing changed for me

I'm a Civil Engineer, but I work in a non-traditional field. I do commercial real estate Property Condition Assessments. I travel constantly, all over the country, visiting job sites, then returning to my home office to write the PCA reports about them. I've been working for myself since 2004. Prior to that, I had two decades of going in to an office working for other engineering companies.

COVID didn't change anything for me. There was a brief period right at the beginning of things, back in the Spring of 2020, when all the work stopped, and I was twiddling my thumbs for a couple months, but around summertime, in the June/July 2020 timeframe, the worked picked right back up and I've been non-stop busy since then.

I've got a flight to Kansas City this afternoon for a job site visit there tomorrow.

I never really enjoyed my work until I got to the point where I could work for myself. When I was working for other companies, I was always promoted into management, which I hated.
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  #8  
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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  #9  
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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  #10  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2022, 8:54 PM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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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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  #11  
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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  #12  
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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  #13  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2022, 3:06 PM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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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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  #14  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 5:10 AM
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Originally Posted by the urban politician View Post
^ 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.
If what you say is true, your practice in the the burbs and you live there too. Ok no issues. So put your money where your mouth is and move to the city and have your practice downtown and take transit. Why the different expectations?
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  #15  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 5:45 AM
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I was sort of hybrid before (1 or 2 days a week wfh, and a lot of after hours wfh before anyway) now full wfh for who knows how long. The only part I miss about going into the office is the fact that it got me out of the house, not snacking...etc. Basically the health benefits. In theory I could exercise whenever I want now, I have a treadmill and peloton right behind me as I type this (my wifes) but no, I am sitting on the computer as usual. I did get a stand up desk at least.
I absolutely do not miss the commutes and the hassles of work/home life balance and how do we get the kids today, oh no a kid is sick today...what do we do with them...etc.
It has definitely been an adjustment. On one hand its easier to work (software, coding...etc) without people yapping all around me. I've never been good at concentrating in distracting environments. On the other hand, its way easier troubleshooting stuff with another person when they are physically right in front of you without all the hassle of sharing screens back and forth and stuff like that.
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  #16  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 3:49 PM
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I joined my current company in summer 2020, so I've only worked with them since the pandemic began. We're currently all WFH, but we had the opportunity to go back into the office in the summer and fall. The procedures were strict: you had to sign an attestation form and take a picture of a negative rapid test that you took prior to each entry; you also had to book a hotdesk from an approved list of desks that were spaced apart. Once inside the office, you had to wear a mask everywhere except your desk and the lunchroom.

Despite this, I was very happy to go into work. I'm much more productive in an in-person office environment. I remember my coworker and I solved a problem on the whiteboard in 5 minutes that had been plaguing her for weeks. It was also refreshing to just have casual, over-the-shoulder conversations and to show results as I worked, rather than to have those brutal online meetings where everybody and their uncle is invited to solve a simple task.

On the other hand, I did appreciate the flexibility of a WFH environment. I have a toddler and we have another child on the way, so I basically have no personal time, and very little time to do many household errands. It was kind of refreshing, especially in the summer, to set my status to "busy", cancel any non-essential meetings and blow off work for hours to go on a bike ride, or cook dinner. My impression about WFH is that productivity is way down, but the essential things are still completed so managers look the other way. I have direct reports and I basically insinuated to them that I didn't care when they worked as long as they got their tasks done and didn't miss meetings scheduled by someone higher than me.

So, it's been a double-edged sword: on one hand, I think we have a more honest appraisal of work-life balance and a realization by a lot of people that we don't need to waste time in an office doing pointless busy work, but at the same time there's a realization that an office environment wasn't just the drudgery of a commute - it was a special place with camaraderie and a more collaborative environment in which to do work.

When things all go back to normal, my hope is that I work in the office three days a week, during which I'll get most of my work out of the way, and my WFH days are ones where I just answer Teams messages on my phone from wherever I happen to be.
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  #17  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 4:02 PM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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If what you say is true, your practice in the the burbs and you live there too. Ok no issues. So put your money where your mouth is and move to the city and have your practice downtown and take transit. Why the different expectations?
^ Really just sidetracking the topic, and there is just so ignorance in this post that I won't even bother.

Point is, for a traditional downtown with centralized office employment to thrive, it needs people to arrive by train in large numbers.

When we abandon that, then we abandon it all. We don't have our cake and eat it to.

We can't have trains sit empty yet still run them at 5 minute headways at rush hour both directions forever without farebox revenue to support it. And what about the businesses downtown that have depended on foot traffic?

I am fine with ending that arrangement if you are. But then don't complain if downtowns become something different or less important than what you or many here have long celebrated them for being. And nobody should complain if plans to close stations or entire train lines begin to get discussed seriously--because it will happen.
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  #18  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 4:19 PM
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I went fully remote in 2020 haven't looked back. My company is tech and has no intention to haul people back into any of our offices. I work with folks everywhere across the country. I hate working from home though, even though I enjoy working remotely. My remedy to this is I got a WeWork global access pass so I always have a place to go work and be around people regardless of whatever city I am in.
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  #19  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2022, 9:43 PM
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^ Really just sidetracking the topic, and there is just so ignorance in this post that I won't even bother.

Point is, for a traditional downtown with centralized office employment to thrive, it needs people to arrive by train in large numbers.

When we abandon that, then we abandon it all. We don't have our cake and eat it to.

We can't have trains sit empty yet still run them at 5 minute headways at rush hour both directions forever without farebox revenue to support it. And what about the businesses downtown that have depended on foot traffic?

I am fine with ending that arrangement if you are. But then don't complain if downtowns become something different or less important than what you or many here have long celebrated them for being. And nobody should complain if plans to close stations or entire train lines begin to get discussed seriously--because it will happen.
I said I enjoyed working from home and gave the reasons why. You went on about me wanting trains running frequently. I never mentioned one thing about trains running frequently, the only I said was I don't miss the over crowded trains for my commute. My life my choice and what I prefer is up to me not you.

Also you are "Do as I say but not as I do"
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  #20  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2022, 9:43 PM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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Originally Posted by pip View Post
I said I enjoyed working from home and gave the reasons why. You went on about me wanting trains running frequently. I never mentioned one thing about trains running frequently, the only I said was I don't miss the over crowded trains for my commute. My life my choice and what I prefer is up to me not you.

Also you are "Do as I say but not as I do"
Damn dude, did you forget your hemorrhoid cream this morning?

Point is, this is a thread in city discussions. Most of us prefer cities to have well functioning, well financed transit systems to continue to promote density and walkability.

I could care less how you live your life, but the greater point is how much WFH threatens the viability of transit. It's an existential question and nothing to get so defensive about.
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