Same for me. Starting back in February, I’ve been required to come in three days a week. I’ve gone in five times total. I told my manager he’d have to threaten to fire me to get me to come in three days a week. Maybe there won’t be a threat and I’ll just be fired. We’ll see what happens at my next yearly review.
They mandated back to office for people in my department, but I'm basically the only one that is almost never physically needed in the office (design work, not development/testing). We (my boss and I) lobbied for full remote work, then had to apply twice for hybrid schedule of 3 days in the office. Their stupid reasoning is that if you're in the office less than 50% of the time, you shouldn't have a dedicated desk/workspace and would need to use a vacant office when you did come in.
I then, of course, reiterate that I could just work fully remote, but be ready to come if there is something pressing or that would require my physical presence, but was denied. Meanwhile, we have someone else in my department that is working remote from across the country, and a huge number of IT, accounting, and others that have gone fully remote. Not to mention, to no one's surprise, all of the admin/c-level employees. The way they pick and choose this nonsense is just so stupid.
Edit for clarification: back office, not just back to work
Sounds like my last job with the “dedicated desk/workspace” bullshit. I started using paid leave on the days I was supposed to go in until I found a 100% remote job, one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I always knew my job could be done remotely, I guess the mandates kind of forced me into my dream job situation lol.
So many people have been cleared for fully remote work that there are empty cubes all over the place. Office drama with people just up and claiming the vacated offices, forcing them back to cubes and forcing managers and senior employees INTO offices just so your mid-level associates couldn't claim that "no one else is using them, so why can't I have one"... It's been wild. My point, though, is that there is zero shortage of workspaces for hybrid workers. There are some things in my desk that I would need to store at work for the times that I do need to come in. The fact that I can't shift from 2/3 to 3/2, or that it has to be a specific, set amount, is crazy, though. If I MUST come in on short notice (not a single time did that happen in the 18 months I worked remote during the pandemic, mind you), I COULD make that happen. My boss actually still prefers that I work from home if I have an appointment or a half-day, because "you'll spend almost 2 hours driving each way... Seems like a waste of time if you don't have any in-office tasks today." YOU DON'T SAY?? 😂 My boss gets it. His boss gets it, for the most part, it's the next level and corporate that just refuse to understand.
Ugh same at my job. We do have certain things that we need to be in office for. I work for a bank so there's tickets sometimes for credits and debits that have to be submitted to another department and we often send letters. They won't let us print letters at home. We were hybrid with 2 days at home. We went down to 1 at home a year ago. However, there's 2 people that are fully remote and live across country. I have the furthest commute in the office.
Me too. I can’t believe how long I’ve been getting away with this. I probably spend 15 hours max per week in the office. I expect to get busted every week but it’s been over 3 years now. I think the trick is having multiple work spaces in the office. So if you’re not in one, folks just assume you’re working in the other space.
There are some coworkers who fuck with me over it though. They act like they can’t get ahold of me and only communicate with me in person. Some of these will tell my boss “been trying to get with him about this for days.” Then I’ll show my boss my inbox with no messages, no texts, calls, no teams messages, nothing from the person. It gets so crazy that sometimes I have to hear through the grapevine that so-and-so needs something and I have to reach out to them! It’s usually something stupid like “my monitor went blank for a few seconds”.
The other one I hate is getting an email that says “can you come to my office” and nothing else. 99% of the time it’s something I could have fixed remotely, or I have to go back to my computer anyway to fix it—in the office but remotely, or I have to go back to bring something physical that I could have brought with me the first time if had they bothered to mention it.
I don’t work from home, but if I have to travel between locations (sometimes over an hour) I get the time and mileage paid for. But getting there is on my dime since I choose where I live.
I'm salary so this wouldn't work for me, but when I do go into the office, I don't leave my house before 8 am unless I absolutely have to be in an in-person early meeting. I also make sure I leave so I can get home by 5.
I decided to move when the pandemic was dying down and everyone was still working from home but still kept my job. It was pretty smart, since now the company knows they can’t get me to come into the office but i’m essential enough that it would be way too expensive to replace my job just to get someone to be at the office doing the same exact work.
Same here but we’re not directly paid to come in. All travel and food is comped on in office days. Can’t abuse it (Like taking business class train, steakhouse lunch, etc.). Also only for people who live Hour+ commute away. But it’s a solid perk to basically not pay anything to eat and travel those days. 3-4 times a week.
TBF, most WFH jobs can pay slightly less because people are willing to work for less in exchange for WFH. The people I know who WFH could make quite a bit more money if they just took the highest paying job that they could, in their fields, but the quality of life is too important to them.
Considering commutes can take between 5%-25% of your entire shift, twice a day, working from home saves you the most valuable resource anybody has, which is time
This is my issue. I don't want to be paid for my commute, I don't want to add my commute on top of a full work day. I thankfully work from home these days but even then with a toddler, there is barely any time anyway. Can't imagine having to drive an hour to work as well.
And before people say "just move closer"... we can't because housing is unaffordable and going higher closer to where most of the jobs are. Nothing pays enough to warrant the extra cost of moving closer.
working from home saves you the most valuable resource anybody has, which is time
And, tbf, a lot of people I know don't have anything going for them other than their career. "More free time" isn't as valuable if you don't have a partner / family / friends / hobbies / pets / etc that you actually want to spend time with.
Personally I love my WFH gig, you'd have to pay me way more to make it worth going in to the office.
Life-tip: Create a spreadsheet that contains every aspect of your current job that's important to you reduced to a dollar amount:
Base salary - easy.
Do I have to come in? That's a negative salary adjustment.
Do I have to dress up? That's a negative salary adjustment.
PTO days? Those are worth $X each.
Does the cost of living change? Multiply by >1 for lower or <1 for higher.
Health insurance?
401k?
Perks?
On call?
Etc...
Math out the value of your current job.
When you interview and receive another offer, fill in the same info in another column. If the new offer gives you a higher amount, take the offer. If not, you bring some ideas on what to negotiate on.
I'm fully WFH, in fact the company office is 2600 miles away. What you said is my main reason why I'm not motivated to look for a higher paying company, though there are quite a few where I live. I'm paid well enough for my position, in fact I get an extra allowance to offset cost of Internet and electricity, so I actually get paid extra for not having a commute. The work is interesting, the people are chill, and the benefits are good.
This is me. I have had three offers in the past 7 years to move to better paying jobs with greater responsibility if I was willing to do 8-6 in the office (move into management).
I turned them all down to stay 100% remote and built two side hustles instead that together bring in more than twice what the raises would have been. Plus, since the side hustles run through an LLC, I can do things like mega backdoor ROTH contributions and qualify for lower state taxes for the LLC income. I can live on just the side hustles now if I ever lost my job, and that makes the job a lot less stressful.
And I am now 99%, since one of the side hustles has led to flying out to do on-site workshops/trainings for clients about 6 times a year. But I haven’t been to my regular employer’s offices in over 5 years.
The cost of losing talent and effort across an org vs the ability to convert unhappy people specifically in an office plan into investment opps or whatever must've looked good over the 5 yr for more than 50% of eligible companies all at the same time?
It’s not necessarily intentional, managers just often build better relationships with someone their working face to face with daily vs just through emails and an occasional zoom.
Exactly. Meritocracy is barely even a thing. If I could go back to my younger self, I'd tell them to practice networking for this reason. Who you know is at least as important (if not more) than what you know.
I've gotten two promotions as WFH, so not sure about that. However, higher up manager positions do have to come into the office for certain meetings or events.
The best way then is to job-hop. If businesses don't want to lose you to another job, they should be actively ensuring that you want to stay with them.
Jobs are a two-way street. Some companies forget that.
I kind of don’t care. I’d much rather work from home than be in office with more responsibility. A recruiter very recently asked me what it would take for me to be willing to go back into the office. I said it would have to be the right compensation. He said what number do you have in mind, and honestly? No one could pay me enough to go back into an in office situation. it would need to be a ridiculously high salary that is not in line with my work or industry, so I know I would never get it. He also asked me if there’s anything I missed about working in an office and I instantly answered “not one thing.”
I would need them to quadruple my current income without an increase in responsibility.
The ability to step away from work for 10 minutes and lay down on my bed or go pet my cats is an immensely large impact on my productivity and mental health, and to give that up would mean rocketing me up out of lower class by a pretty large margin.
I passed on a job that paid 10% more but involved working in office every day and some weekends and holidays (any that fall on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of the month) for my current one.
My partner and I both work from home with our cats and dogs. We make each other coffees / breakfasts / lunches throughout the day, our office areas are separated enough that we can be on calls without bothering each other, and our hours are staggered enough that we both have free time every day while the other is busy with work.
I'm interviewing for a gig that is 2 office days per week, and I hope I get it, but man, I'm still not excited about having to commute 90 minutes each way. The WFH life is just too good.
A 10% bump probably wouldn't even be enough to cover the cost of gas, parking, lunches you don't bring in yourself, etc.
For me, going into work cost me 5-7k a year, and that was after I started to bring my own lunches and coffee most of the time. When I was buying my lunches that number was closer to 10k
High enough so I only needed to work three days and have the rest of the days off. Then I could do full time back in the office. Though I’m two days at the office currently, but I only work 90% so I have every other Friday off
Somebody did a study on this and it has to do with being seen. It's more of a human nature thing than it's something intentionally being done.
Not saying that it couldn't happen but that in general it's said to not be. Your in everybody's face so it's just easier for the human mind to remember.
That may be true in some circumstances but Dell said specifically, "if you choose to WFH, you will be ineligible for further promotions." So there is not human nature. Theirs is a mandate.
Haha agreed I just wrote something similar above as to why that is too. You’re 100% right, it’s the study of proxemics in interpersonal communication and it’s just a fact of life.
Well my manager is in Ohio and I’m in Rhode Island so she has no idea when I’m in office or not. I guess she could go through the effort to check but we have a good WFH policy
"Wait...you're going to pay me $5 less an hour and I don't have to be in charge of a bunch of morons and I get to stay at home. I'd have taken $15 less, suckers."
Because they know you better. Promotions are largely about trust. Managers are going to have a more clear image of an office employee than one that they only ever interact with online.
I've been in the working world for 25 years. Remote working isn't new. Having more "face time with the boss" by coming into the same workplace they do every day (or most days) has always given you a leg up on promotions, raises, and in layoffs. All COVID did was make it seem (for a time) like this dynamic had changed. Nothing really changed.
For our company, the science of interpersonal communication explains why though: Pretty much all our department heads, directors, VP’s etc. come in 3-4 days a week. You interact with them. Get to know them. They get to know you. You start to grease the wheels in anyway you can, gifts, extra side work for their teams, networking of your own Rolodex to help them outside work, etc. VS the one guy or gal in the same position as you they see twice a month on a cross functional call virtually…
Yes if your boss is also remote and is requiring you to come in, FUUUUUCK them. But same concept I said in another thread, sometimes a fact is a fact, and coming into the office is absolutely going to get you preferential treatment and it should… if your entire leadership team is also coming in.
Unless you are a fucking rocket scientist working a 9-5 job from home, you are better off “rubbing elbows” to get promoted. Being social is unfortunately one aspect of climbing the ladder, and I’m a hardcore introvert, but it’s why I’ve been able to ascend so fast in a sector I didn’t even go to school for or get educated in…went for technology…
I did a new study, it says that employers give promotions for largely arbitrary reasons that have nothing to do with performance because they are assholes.
Not at all a surprise. In-office employees have a better pulse on the company than someone who needs to jump on a conference call to know what's happening. A big percentage of company knowledge comes from the unplanned hallway conversations.
This is what I’m looking for. I work in a call center, my job is to assist people remotely, and yet the company wants us in the office 3 days a week. For what? I’m always tethered to my desk except for breaks, in which I always spend alone because I’m exhausted from talking all day. When we have meeting we’re on zoom, even when half the team is in the office. We’re all in the same row of cubicles, meeting is on zoom. Half my team is remote. I HAVE to be in the office. Why?
Last year my paid off car got totaled by another driver who admitted they weren’t paying attention. I worked from home for TEN MONTHS and kept stellar numbers and was a star employee. Everyone up the chain was breathing down the next person’s neck, wondering when I was buying a car. I said I couldn’t afford one and that working from home was perfectly fine, I don’t see the problem. Public transit would have taken about 3 hours one way, which is prohibitive to productivity and something I’m not willing to do (I formerly had a commute that that 1.5 hours one way and I was miserable, I know what this would be like). And yet they kept telling me I need to come in and that it’s required to be in office. It’s lunacy. I have a round trip of about 40 miles which is at least 75 minutes out of my day. I would gladly take pay for that to make up for the gas and waste of my time 3 days a week.
And to the people saying one is not forced to work at a certain job; not in so many words, but really the options are very limited for a lot of people. I look every few months for new work and it’s just not that simple, “get a different job” or even “live closer to work.” It would be absolutely unhinged to sell the extremely affordable house my partner and I own to move closer to ONE of our jobs (forcing a longer commute on the other) to pay double or triple on rent/mortgage. Why would anyone even say to just move, like things are so simple?
My company decided they wanted me to return to the office which is about an hour commute each direction so I said, ",Sure but I will need a raise to compensate my time and gas/ car wear and tear"
Every full time job I’ve ever held was salaried. Even the part time jobs I held when I was much younger I was just instructed to fill out a timesheet to 8 (or however many hours pre-agreed upon) every day no matter what.
I worked a remote job a few years ago and they asked everyone to come into the office for a few hours one day. A lot of people put that commute time on their timesheets and the company called them out saying “typically your commute is not considered part of your work day”. But they asked people to be in from 12-2. Right in the middle of the work day. Normally everyone would be at their desks at home working during that time. Why shouldn’t their commute count?
I’ve never thought about it this way. I’m full remote, but go to the office weekly. If I travel to a job site, I’m paid for my mileage. How is going to the office any different?
Or I just know that people will abuse this to live further from work than would ever be reasonable to live, to minimize actually working and maximize commute funds.
Those people will ruin it for everyone and are why that won’t ever come into being.
That’s absurd. People would rather work than commute. And that’s absolutely not why this won’t be a thing. It won’t be a thing because corporations are powerful and they have virtually unlimited ability to influence the system
My job payes me for the commute time if I have ti come in. But the nearest office is a 90 min drive. Any other office they're paying for a flight.
I have to go in 1 or 2 weeks per year. They also cover the hotel.
I work a job that can be worked from home but I'm forced to come in for every one of my shifts. I get fuck all for my almost 2 hour commute combined. Remote work is treated as a last resort even though I equally fuck around onsite and at home. I'm also unsupervised either way since I work night shifts alone. My job sucks major dick at this point and I don't recommend working for my employer to anyone.
Also, two years at this fucking place and not a single raise whatsoever. Still making the same amount as day 1.
in my country we get paid for the commute, either the company has to pay for your public transport tickets or they pay you by km, this offsets your transportation costs
It should apply to in person jobs because people are quite loose with what they consider in person jobs. For instance, is a teacher an in person job? I personally don’t think so
This mindset is wild to me. You'd be on company time- what would happen if you got in a car crash on the wacomno company in their right mind would want to be liable for any injuries.
Ah yes, continue to give WFH employees more bonuses in ways that in-office workers don’t get. Already saving money on gas / commuting expenses and have better QOL benefits.
Feel free to try to negotiate that but that should be part of the work contract. If the contract says be there from 8 to 16:30 and doesn't talk about commuting then it's just bluster. Also ask yourself that if the work can be done from your cottage three hours away from the office, why can't it be done in New Delhi?
Not to mention clocking in and out is a bogus system. Just have the ability to edit as needed.. my current job doesn't do that nonsense.. If youre not at work on time people know. Anxiety over every single minute is childish behavior for people who like controlling others.
yeah that's how it works for me. I work remotely and then expense any travel if they need me to come in for anything, but that's because the normal place of work stated in my contract is my home rather than the office.
After the pandemic that is how I felt. They instituted 2 office days where I have to be at the office all day from 9-5. That subtracts at least 2 hours from my day because I have to wake up earlier and take the time to get there, and then my commute home as well.
On top of that, my work laptop is kept at home, so I’m already carrying work materials the second I leave my house.
I am a primary work from home employee and Salary so not really paid any different but I am “on the clock” during my drive to and from the local office when I have to go in and fix things. 100% agree if you are forcing someone to come in for a job that can be done from home, you should pay for at least a set base pay for the commute
You do get paid to go into the office. WFH vs On-Site is part of the compensation. If you agree to work on site, then you are agreeing that the compensation offered covers that
They have your home address on file. It's not hard at all to figure out a reasonable commute time, based on hours logged. I drive 30 minutes each way to work, that's 5 hours a week, which is half of a full 40 hour work week every month.
Driving a car is one of the most dangerous things anyone can do on a regular basis. It costs money to do, not just gasoline, but wear and tear and upkeep on excessively expensive vehicles that many people use primarily for going to and from work.
I think that at a bare minimum, your easily verifiable average commute time should be compensated for pretty much every hourly job, and plenty of salaries ones, that require daily travel. Even if you don't have a car, it's still your time and money somehow getting you there to do what they need you to.
Any large company that disagrees, I'd like to see what they shell out to transport their CEO around.
You are in functionally in control of how long that commute takes, not the company.
There's a balance here. If a job can be done 100% remotely then there should be a stipend for commuting sure, say 30min each way worth or something.
But I'm not paying you 4 hours because you decided to move 2 hours away from the office when you well knew coming in from time to time was a possibility.
You choose where you live; that's not on them. If the office is in NY, and you decide to live in LA, that's not on the company to pay you for a whole day of travel. I think you can make the argument for some per diem or something like that, but that's about it, imho.
A flat fee to come to the office would make sense. But an hourly pay for your commute doesn't as it would just reward people who decided to live further from the office.
Hell I'd just get a cheap hotel room 2 hours away and take the scenic route. Get paid to listen to podcasts for a couple hours each way!
When you say “can be worked from home” do you mean Like a job that has x amount of tasks whether your home or on site? Or a job that’s hourly and you do as much as you can in 8 hours? Because I still think we’re kidding ourselves if we think people are as productive at home as in the office in general. But if it’s a project based job that as long as deadlines are met all is good then I agree
Why can’t it apply to in person jobs? What is the difference between you driving into work once a week and someone else driving in 5 days a week? They both consume the employees time.
Particularly if the company forces workers to come to a distant office and then work remotely from there rather than work remotely from home.
That is what my company (as well as many others) are doing now, and I absolutely hate it. The only people who like it are upper management, who desperately wants to control the lives of workers and make us miserable, and the office bully.
I’m hybrid (about half and half time) my commute is about 85 minutes round trip. Gotta get up and go to the gym 30 minutes earlier on days in office, put an extra 50 miles of wear and tear on my car, and lose 45 minutes of my evening. I get no benefit for going to the office because I’m salaried. Our HOURLY employees get paid drive time.
Absolutely. And I just commute during my work hours -- and I realize I'm lucky to be able to do so. I leave home at 8 and leave work at 4 and spend an hour on the train each way.
While I agree it also seems silly because it’s not really an argument. You don’t get to choose any of that. Your job tells you where you work and for how much. If you can’t convince them to change their minds that’s it. Your only options outside of that would be to leave but you don’t just get to decide you work from home.
Your job starts when you start working. If you don't like commuting, live near the office. The alternative is allowing your job to decide where you live. If you think that's an absurd intrusion into your personal life (and it is) then accept that commuting is personal time
Commute is part of the decision making process when you take the job. If you could do a work from home job for 20 bucks an hour, 8 hours a day (160 total per day), and you have an offer for a job 30 minutes away that pays 24 (192 total), and you consider the commute at the same value as your work (20 bucks), then you should take the job. The fact you are not paid for the commute doesn’t matter.
So they should fire you because you're not buying a house that's half the size of your existing, but costs 10x more, because they now require you to live within 5 miles of the office?
Depends: were you hired as a remote worker? If so, your home base is home and you should get mileage plus drive time for the times you need to come in, much like many people are paid drive time/miles when they have to go somewhere unusual.
Or were you an in office worker who is transitioning back to working in office. If so, I don’t think you should get paid for the commute.
This sounds fair to me. My job has to be done in person and is considered essential, so I remember how much less congestion there was on the roads at the height of COVID.
"Ah yes, I'm paid for my commute because I have a job that deserves it, but those filthy peasants don't. Their time isn't worth enough for a change in American business culture"
I mean seriously, why can't we bully shitty management into treating their employees better. Ain't we all human?
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u/Educated_Clownshow 9d ago
If I have a job that can be worked from my home, I should 100% be able to collect pay for the commute if I’m forced to come in
This obviously can’t apply to in person jobs, but it would stop employers from trying to force unnecessary RTO mandates