Forcing people to go into the office is the boss pretending to work.
I mean... I'm writing this while at the office "working" so I that seems very valid to me. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
amateur: scrolling lemmy at work
pro: balatro at work
master: beat saber at workI ruined my work day by dying early in Noita and spend the rest of the day too salty to do anything but watch youtube. I get out in a few minutes...
I don't even have to pretend I'm not working when I'm in the office. I'm constantly being interrupted by people to the point where I only get maybe 2 hours of good working conditions total throughout the day. I may spend a good amount of my time at home blatantly not working, but even then I'm still getting more work done in a day than trying and failing to work for 8 hours in the office.
Yo same. I work more efficiently at home so I can fuck around between tasks.
I don't want to work
If you can't tell people are working productively remotely, you have no business being a manager.
Can someone explain why companies are forcing people to come back to the office? I have a job where I need to be there all day. There are a lot of jobs for people don't need to be there. And there are a lot of jobs were people are more efficient from home. And there are a lot of jobs where if your company is more efficient working from home and you did not need to own or rent a gigantic building, seems like everything would lead you towards work from home. So I wanted the reason they are trying to get people to go back to the office?
In my sector it's just incompetence. Bosses are under the illusion that being able to see the workers in and out makes them better at managing their hours (false) and that being able to physically reach someone makes the communication more efficient (also false)
A very common reason is because you're not clerical staff, you're courtiers. The bosses want an office with people running around hurriedly doing busy stuff, which accounts for a lot of the bullshit jobs that workers are assigned, not that they need to be done, but to serve as a Tiger Repellant Rock. Or the bear patrol, which is from the same Simpsons episode.
A more conscious answer is that offices had been leased out for years at a time, and leaving them empty would mean they go to waste. While this means workers time is wasted (commute, prepping lunch out etc.) they don't care about that as much.
When RTO orders became required (RTO or be laid off / RTO or get reassignment) that was part of the ownership class reasserting their dominance over a working class who was suddenly in demand after the lockdown and post-epidemic period. It was notable that even the Democratic officials were glad to memory-hole all the progressive programs that manifested to facilitate business during the lockdown. In fact, the telecommute controversy became the keystone issue, since workers learned they were happier and did better work at home. But the boss wanted to see them labor in their cubicle.
We suck at retaining class consciousness, or the super-giant conservative propaganda machine is really good at suppressing it. Seriously, FOX News and OAN are poison.
ETA A more comparable occupation is garden hermit which is a hired performer who lives in an aristocrat's garden as part of the scenery, say if he's comically eccentric. He may even have duties like ringing the hour chime or pretending to make shoes.
- They're stuck in long leases for commercial real estate, and feel the need to justify the money being spent
- They're stuck with shit for brains middle managers who don't contribute anything but acting like glorified, unnecessary babysitters, and the company feels the need to justify keeping these people around
They want you to quit
Some of the answers you already received are partially correct, but I work in Commercial Real Estate and I’d wager it’s because when a large tenant stops operating at a location, it causes a trigger on the loan that has repercussions due the property owner. Often, they lose access to manage their own rents.
This happens even if the tenant is still paying rent. It’s because a vacant tenant, especially a large one, loses business for the surrounding business.
Example: A grocery store in a strip mall closes down for repairs. Even if they are still occupying the space, it would cause a trigger. Lots of the other spaces in the strip mall are more valuable with traffic from the grocery store shoppers.
TLDR, they don’t want a loan violation that will cost them.
Control. They want to feel like they're in control of all aspects of their team/company. I work from home, but they've put on tons of monitoring software to check if we're looking at different pages, moving our mouse, and interacting with our keyboards. It's all just about control. When people are in the office, they feel like they have control over what they're doing. They're being observed by other coworkers, etc.
It can vary from location to location, but honestly I think a lot of it is that a pretty significant percentage of management can't get an erection unless they're watching people suffer.
I actually do more work at home. Zero distractions. Just work.
I know right? Who do these people think they are, shareholders?
The last thing I want is to take my work home.
Especially if you work for Rothschild's Sewage and Septic Sucking Services.
"When you're in the muck, call our truck!"
I'd say the fake-work product from telecommuniters is by necessity of a higher grade of quality than in-office fake work. A cleric can simply run around between the copier and the coffee machine carrying a folder of papers, and that would be sufficient to entertain the boss. The at-home worker has to create a spreadsheet or chart or something that seems important and relevant to the department goals. to make sure the boss feels he got a day's worth of work.
I get more done at home cause I’m a chatty guy in the office. But I do like the variety as I do Mon, Wed, Fri at home and Tue and Thur in the office.
Friday is a three hour day too.
My group is the only one in our building not allowed to work from home half the week. We are moving office soon, and as a part of that the other groups will have their regular WFH days eliminated, and we will all receive a number of WFH days at the beginning of the year like PTO.
I'd be mad about it, but every week like clockwork it takes 6+ hours for everyone at home to respond to simple emails or questions. I should be mad at the company for their stupid policy, instead I'm mad at the massive number of my coworkers who fucked it up for us before we even got it.
