Pointless mandatory office days

Posted by Turak64@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 353 comments

Like a lot of people post covid, I do enjoy working from home more than the office. We're hybrid at my current place, but only 2 days are allowed WFH. Recently I've had more than that due to family bereavement and it has been approved by my line manager and their manager (CIO). However, HR have been harassing them about my extra remote days. Luckily my bosses are on my side and are getting annoyed with the pettyness of it all. Today I'm in the office with 2 other people and I don't even know their names. All my work is done on M365 portals and most of my colleagues in IT work at other sites in other countries. What is the point of me driving in, dealing with traffic, to sit practically on my own and speaking to nobody? The company isn't benefiting, I'm not happy and my work is unaffected either way. #Rant

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TechCarsBurn@reddit

Mandatory in office 5 days a week. I work on an infrastructure team, 3/4 of my team is in different provinces or the US and all my work is done by remoting around our infrastructure. Literally 0 need for me to be in office but here I am.

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AyeJay_TX@reddit

This is where I am now too. I'm the only person on the systems side of the inf team that has to come back to the office. The rest are all in india and my lead got an RTO exception. It pisses me off to no end. I'm planning on booking meeting rooms for every single one of my meetings with my team. I'm there, I might as utilize the amenities right?

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Snowdeo720@reddit

Dealing with a very similar situation. Mandatory in office days where I spend them alone in a pod to be able to be on calls with people that are allowed to be fully remote. Absolutely no reason to be on-site at all whatsoever. The open office concept means I can’t get shit done and interruptions are constant.

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223454@reddit

I'm not even allowed hybrid. We literally sit at our computers all day every day, in the office, on the phone and remoting into other people's computers who are at home. It's complete BS and I'm almost done with it. Time for a new job soon.

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SpiritualNobody8800@reddit

What are you going to be doing at home that’s different?

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SkyWires7@reddit

Umm... productivity? I'm mandatory hybrid now, previously 100% WFH. I get a LOT more done remotely in the quiet with no interruptions, than in shared office space with the noise of everyone on the phone or talking to walk-ins. My job requires a ton of focused concentration, which is INCOMPATIBLE with an environment of constant chatter, banging doors, and other focus-destroying noise and interruptions.

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223454@reddit

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you asking why I would want to be at home instead of in the office?

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SpiritualNobody8800@reddit

You are complaining about having to sit in front of your computer, on the phone, why is it different then at home? Same task. It’s good to seperate home life from work. All I’m hearing is “i don’t want to earn the money I’m getting paid I want pjs and sleeps and couch and pretend work” Help me understand.

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223454@reddit

Ah, there it is. You were looking to take a shot at remote working. \-All I’m hearing is “i don’t want to earn the money I’m getting paid I want pjs and sleeps and couch and pretend work” Where did I say anything that suggested that? Please directly quote the part that gives you that idea. I'm not sure what you have against PJs and working on the couch. I can pretend to work in the office too. This sub is full of posts and comments about how little work we actually do sometimes. I want to do my normal job, but without the hassle of going into the office every day. If you don't already understand the perks of working remotely by now, there's nothing I can say to help.

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SpiritualNobody8800@reddit

Yup, cannot stand it. Everybody has to commute to work, way of life, lol I expressed the perks, LAZY. “Oh I’m so introvert I like to triple my productivity at home” And then on the other hand, “there’s always nothing to do , so little we do”😂 Always contradicting.

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Snowdeo720@reddit

Definitely!

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Frekavichk@reddit

You aren't contributing anything to the conversation by just posting "Definitely" and should have just hit the upvote button.

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Snowdeo720@reddit

That I can’t disagree, I appreciate this because it gives some sort of reason. Even has me motivated to edit my comment to give more to the commenter. I just felt what they put forward having been in a similar spot previously, could’ve given more encouragement or suggestion to help them make that next jump. Need to do better and be more supportive in my replies in the future for sure!

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Frekavichk@reddit

I mean one of the magical things about reddit is being able to connect with random internet strangers by having shared experiences.

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Snowdeo720@reddit

Very true, the interactions are what make this platform what it is. It’s also so beneficial to have communities that are so oddly specific to one’s career or hobbies, helps you keep coming back for more.

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223454@reddit

It's weird the things people downvote here sometimes. If they disagree, they should leave a comment explaining why.

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Snowdeo720@reddit

Wholly agreed!

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Think_Pink_TX@reddit

most of my team isn't even here in the USA so it doesn't matter most of the time where I'm sitting. But, they have to justify the rent of the building and they want a busy office with humans working if we have customers come by. So basically as my husband says we are just props.

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ImCaffeinated_Chris@reddit

I'm currently battling the same thing. They want 3 days in office. I've been WFH for 2 years! I get little work done in the office. Performance has increased the last 2 years and now they want to go backwards?

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traydee09@reddit

Its just the occasional fuckwit that ruins it for everyone. I have a guy on the team thats constantly late for meetings... often takes hours to respond to emails or IM's, even though he shows online all day, or very clearly has JUST started his day at the first meeting (even though its two hours into the work day). And its easier for them to just say "everyone in the office". Another possibility is a lot of IT folks are introverts, like for me, I am absolutely comfortable working at home alone all day, and being around people constantly is annoying and draining. But for as much as it bothers me, there are people that NEED to be around other people, and it drains them the same, by being isolated. So its a battle... the extroverts NEED to see and communicate face to face, us, the techies want to be home alone and focused.

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CARLEtheCamry@reddit

> And its easier for them to just say "everyone in the office". Lazy management. There's a guy on my team who takes morning calls from bed. He also frequently works to as late as 8PM, and gets all his work done so my boss allows it. If people aren't adult enough to WFH effectively it should be managed individually. I'm "mandated" 3 days in office a week, but only come in one day, when we have our group staff meeting. And my boss allows that beause I am quantifiably more productive at home.

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punkwalrus@reddit

I worked with a guy who was very highly skilled programmer, but also a volunteer firefighter and part-time paramedic. He was allowed to work 10-2 in the office, and work from home the rest of the time. He was often involved with a lot of late night/early morning installs, so overall he did 40+ hours a week, but staggered hours. He was never known to be a flake, was always responsible, etc. Then we got a new boss who insisted he work 9-5. Plus the late night installs. The SE just ignored him, so the boss made mandatory 9-10am and 4-5pm meetings for a while, just to force him to. He just didn't show. Then the boss fired him, and REALLY went over the top, like made sure armed security was present to drag this guy away from his desk and made a big dramatic display of the SE being fired and thrown out. It was distressing to say the least, and that boss didn't last very long because so many people quit after that, including myself.

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Clamd1gger@reddit

tbf, firefighters are usually pretty jacked so the security might have seemed reasonable to the manager lol

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neresni-K@reddit

“Snakes in Suits”… punishmet just for the sake of punishment…

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ryoko227@reddit

Incorrect... It's punishment because "he ignores me and doesn't respect my position and authority!" Also read, "he didn't listen to me!" People like that will literally cut off their own nose to spite their face, it's pathetic.

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PandaBoyWonder@reddit

That is a huge mess! wow

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Expensive-Net-6171@reddit

IF there are people who are not doing their tasks from home then you sholuld fire them instead of putting everyone into hybrid mode which is pointless and waste of time

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Trelfar@reddit

>the extroverts NEED to see and communicate face to face Almost all executives are this type, and most of them cannot even conceive there is a personality type that doesn't need it, let alone people who work better without it. Therein lies the problem.

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jdptechnc@reddit

This guy was doing the same thing before covid WFH. Now he is a convenient scapegoat for why WFH is needed. When in many cases, eliminating WFH is really a workforce reduction tactic - thin the herd by voluntary attrition without having to resort to layoffs.

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HeligKo@reddit

If you quit, then they don't have to report it as lay offs. Better press and looks better to the board.

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Sad_Recommendation92@reddit

I mean that's kind of the prevailing theory behind what Amazon is doing. They keep getting bad. Press over frivolous layoffs that barely move the needle revenue wise. But if they just introduce a set of conditions that's wholly unappealing to their staff, some of them will just quit and they won't have to pay severance.

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malikto44@reddit

What screws it up are two things: * The one screwball who does nothing all day, likely has a mouse wiggler, and because he isn't under constant supervision at the office, slacks, and makes an example for everyone. * The extroverted, egotistical, short-sighted manager who wants to see everyone in an open office, no headphones or earbuds, and who feels it is victory to summon what they think are the troglodytes from the caves to be under their purview for the day. Then when the economy gets out of the gutter, he wonders why all the good people high-tail it when jobs appear again.

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Snowdeo720@reddit

Fucking exactly. If everyone was mandated in office, it would feel more sensible. With how the policy stands at present, it’s just a controlling ego trip from senior leadership because they don’t understand IT.

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Unlikely_Zucchini574@reddit

I've been in two interviews for roles where hybrid was the expectation which is fine, the recruiter mentioned that initially. But in one peer interview, he mentioned he's out of state and doesn't have to follow RTO. Another, the manager mentioned they have a group of grandfathered employees hired during Covid. Employers want it both ways. "Mandates" and "collaboration" go out the window if it meant they'd lose someone they've already trained. But I have to come in to sit on Zoom meetings with people out of state because I was hired 2 years later lol. Employers are free to set their policies of course, but it's clear the motivating factors are exercising control and ego.

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ConsoleDev@reddit

If the CEO had to come in the same number of days as everyone else, every company would shut up and make WFH permanent forever.

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eat-the-cookiez@reddit

CEO life is nothing like a normal employees life. They are in meetings or private offices, long lunches with other C suites etc. they aren’t working in a loud distracting hot desk environment trying to write code before the sprint finishes

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Snowdeo720@reddit

Painfully accurate, frustratingly accurate even.

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eat-the-cookiez@reddit

Even better when it’s a cloud based job. And hot desking. And your team is in different states so your on teams calls anyway.

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Snowdeo720@reddit

I feel this very heavily.

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secret_configuration@reddit

Same here. Three mandatory in-office days now. It was two at first, now three and some companies now have mandatory 4 in-office days. I think the writing is on the wall for WFH and I think most companies will go to a 4/1 schedule. 4 in office and 1 (Friday) from home.

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Unable-Entrance3110@reddit

We have mandatory "core days" here too. Monday is supposed to be everyone's core day and then you choose one other one. Nobody pays any attention to it though. We have people who haven't set foot in the office since COVID. Employee retention is a priority though, so management turns a blind eye to it and instead tries to lure people in with things like monthly employee appreciation lunches, birthday celebrations, project win celebrations, themed pot lucks and other events.

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Think_Pink_TX@reddit

I know this is from a couple months ago but yes!! I was told we had to come in this week even though it is end of year here and most people are getting ready to be off for a couple weeks. So, like a good employee I came in and LITERALLY nobody else is here except one of the executive assistants. I'm going to the cafeteria for my free lunch and then going home . . .

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JealousyRunsDeep@reddit

When it's somebody's job to count the faces in the office, the efficiency problem isn't the remote workers. There is a layer of the current workforce who are threatened because remote work shows up just how little they actually do for the organisation when there are no workers to count and report presence for.

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cdheer@reddit

I work for a huge company, and starting late last year they implemented a fairly draconian RTO policy. I am now required to go into the office a minimum of three days a week, and for the days I don’t go in, I need to have a valid reason, which I have to log in a tracking tool. They check both badge swipes *and LAN activity* to confirm attendance. If you don’t make it 3 days, and/or if you don’t have valid reasons for the days you don’t go in, you show up on a report, and your manager gets a nastygram. Things to note, from my perspective: * My assigned office is ~60 miles from my house * Commute time each way is anywhere from 60-90 minutes * The number of people I work with in that office is zero * I was hired as a full time WFH person in ‘97 * Our corporate real estate has mandated that nobody can have an assigned desk/cubicle * Every morning I need to find an open desk

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DeliBoy@reddit

This sounds like pure Hell. You'd have to double my current salary to put up with it. We've been WFH since Q1 2020 and I'd never go back.

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cdheer@reddit

It’s absolutely hell. I’ve got over 25 years at this place. I was hanging around for the pension, but my ex took that in the divorce, so after the 1st of the year, I’ll be looking. The sad thing is, I like my manager, and his boss, and *his* boss. All good people, and all hate the RTO bullshit, but this nonsense is coming from the CEO himself. Many have it worse: they’ve been told they have to move to a different state or lose their jobs.

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grouchy-woodcock@reddit

Sounds like an effective way to get people to quit. No severances. No layoffs.

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cdheer@reddit

Yep, that thought had occurred to me. Problem is, the best employees are also going to have the easiest time getting a new job, so that’s who you end up losing. But then they’ll outsource these jobs at the first opportunity anyway.

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grouchy-woodcock@reddit

Yeah, they might. But in my experience with offshore teams (and a lot of other things), you get what you pay for. If you want cheap, poor quality output, offshore. You're going to have to pay someone to fix their work anyway.

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cdheer@reddit

You’re not wrong, although I have absolutely encountered offshore resources that are fantastic. But as someone who’s been around this industry for a very long time, the C suites don’t care. The money they save via offshoring swamps any costs they might face as a result. “Barely good enough” is the end goal of capitalism.

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Iseult11@reddit

Dell?

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cdheer@reddit

No, but I get the impression this is happening all over.

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niomosy@reddit

WFH is 2 days yet they want a reason? Reason: WFH day.

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cdheer@reddit

They have a pre-defined list and you can’t add to it. I just pick “off hours work” because they won’t know the difference anyway.

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ElDodger10@reddit

Another reason why this country is in a decline

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Turak64@reddit (OP)

Which country would that be then?

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throwaway0000012132@reddit

Be me: - going to the office and doing work, but not the best performance since I was constantly being distracted by other employees chitchats and petty requests (that hardly got tickets, still I demanded). - WFH I had the best productivity, best results and more concentration. Also doing more in less time and only working on tickets. - show my boss the results and comparing both. - boss changed my contract to be full remote. Going to the office to do the same and having worse performance is totality stupid.

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elkab0ng@reddit

Had big RTO push. I enthusiastically supported it, and scheduled meetings all day long on the in-office days, meaning of course that I couldn’t respond to emails, work on two things at once, requests piled up But I was publicly a team player and supportive of the company’s initiative. Rah rah, go team! After a few weeks they declared me and my staff mandatory remote.

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grouchy-woodcock@reddit

"We would prefer that you not work in the office."

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throwaway0000012132@reddit

Because of... reasons.

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Fantastic_Estate_303@reddit

I recently saw this, and it resonates with me sooooo much. This is what office days are like, and they suck. https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg?si=pgJE5rGtchUCWMlb

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Fantastic_Estate_303@reddit

Techs, Engineers, Devs ... We are wizards, we are not part of a legion or horde. We hone our craft and swoop in and show our magic and then retreat into isolation. HR don't understand this. They want wizards to train with the troops, to fit into rank and file, and this just makes us weak...

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fdkrew@reddit

Occasionally you need to remind HR with account password resets specially on days they are onboarding people. Just to annoy them and then be available while on-site.

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ZAFJB@reddit

>I'm not happy and my work is unaffected either way. I'm not happy and my work is ~~unaffected either way~~ is being affected. Just refer every HR email back to them telling them to talk to you manager. You manger manages you, not HR. If necessary tell HR that they are not your manger.

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Arudinne@reddit

> I'm not happy and my work is unaffected either way is being affected. I'm usually only in the office once a week and it feels like my least productive day.

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sybrwookie@reddit

We go in once/week. The breakdown of that day: I roll in a solid 30-60 mins after I'd normally be online if I was WFH. I'm still there a solid hour+ before most of the people coming in that day. By around 9:30-10, everyone goes out together to get coffee. Kill a solid 20-30 mins there. Every other week, have a big meeting, which starts just after getting back from coffee. That goes till lunch. Lunch is at least 90 mins. There's not even a question there. By 2:30-3, people start leaving. Everyone but a dedicated few are gone by just after 4. If I'm actually doing something I have momentum on, I'll stick around to 5 because a few people like to go out for a drink after work on the day we're in. It's absolutely a waste of a day.

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ggerke@reddit

Man, this is exactly what I had to do for going in to the office... except for the big meeting part. Manager was remote to me so any meeting was on a conf call. I picked going in on Wednesdays since that was new comic book day and I had to leave the house anyway.

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ThemesOfMurderBears@reddit

I'm confused. How about *not* leaving to get coffee with everyone, and *not* taking a ninety minute lunch? Those things can't possibly be *forced* on you.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

Peer pressure. You aren't seen as a team player and makes you look bad on your reviews.

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sybrwookie@reddit

What? Why would I not do that? I've wasted most of 2 hours of my day to get to/from work, why wouldn't I do those things?

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eat-the-cookiez@reddit

Plus it’s socialising and connection - this is the reason why we are required in the office Except they don’t reduce the workload to allow for this

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ThemesOfMurderBears@reddit

>What? Why would I not do that? To make your day more productive. You're claiming it's a waste of the day, and you're actively doing things to make it a wasteful day. >I've wasted most of 2 hours of my day to get to/from work, why wouldn't I do those things? Maybe your employer doesn't care, but I can't imagine most jobs are going to be content with their employees thinking they are entitled to extra time off during the day just because they had to go into the office. My work days are no less productive on the days I go into the office, since I just do my job like I normally would.

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sybrwookie@reddit

So I should reward them for making my day worse, by working harder to make up for them making my day worse for no reason? Yea, that sounds like a terrible answer. No, I think I'll do whatever I need to, to show the metrics that I get more done at home, since I get more done more easily at home.

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ThemesOfMurderBears@reddit

>So I should reward them for making my day worse, by working harder to make up for them making my day worse for no reason? I'm just trying to follow the logic, which seems to be circular. You laid out your day, which clearly has gaps of your own making in it. Then you complain about how your in-office days are not productive. You can literally fix the thing you're complaining about, but I guess being spiteful wins the day. I'm not going to intentionally handicap my productivity out of spite against my employer for having an in-office day. If I *were* to do that, I certainly wouldn't have the gall to come on reddit and complain about how my in-office day isn't as productive as my WFH days.

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sableknight13@reddit

It's a collective exercise in team building... why exclude yourself to work on your own when everyone including manager/team leads and whatever are doing it with you all? The rest of the 4 days wfh are for focused work. The one day in the office is to talk through common points and have more in depth broader ranging conversations over coffee and lunch and in that meeting then just do whatever.

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ThemesOfMurderBears@reddit

>It's a collective exercise in team building... why exclude yourself to work on your own when everyone including manager/team leads and whatever are doing it with you all? That person said that they consider the entire day to be a waste. So if those *are* teambuilding exercises, it's clear they don't see value in them. If teambuilding is a waste of time that can otherwise be productive, one would naturally conclude that they can ignore the teambuilding and do their job instead. If there is value in the teambuilding, the day is no more wasteful than any other.

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Durania@reddit

Found Peter Gibbon's Reddit account.

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sybrwookie@reddit

I wish I had his money

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Tetha@reddit

We have decided to have 3-4 days in-office at the start of a month, opposed to 1 day / week. Our timetracking shows that during this week, structured work and progress on hard projects just plummets. Sure, this includes that we schedule a bunch of meetings and plannings and brain storming into this week. But, these meetings take up like half of these days at most. And, people are stressed by commute, people catch up on things, we have to fix the coffee maker since no one is here, people are much easier to interrupt, ... It's a good week to plan, brainstorm, exchange technique, and I do think this week makes us more effective for the month. But the actual hard work requiring concentration gets done at home by now.

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dark_frog@reddit

Why does it take you so much longer to do your work compared to your in- office coworkers?

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awnawkareninah@reddit

Im assuming its ongoing project tasks and they just work on them at the office as well as at home.

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sybrwookie@reddit

Oh, yea, if that's what he was referring to...yea, I always have a couple of longer-term projects going on. Doesn't everyone? If you don't, you should be worried that you're idling and doing nothing.

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awnawkareninah@reddit

I just find stuff if I dont have one honestly, if nothing else it can be an educational exercise.

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GaiaFisher@reddit

Man, it’s wild how my tasks and responsibilities take different amounts of time than someone else’s, it’s like people aren’t all doing identical tasks or something.

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sybrwookie@reddit

I cannot for the life of me figure out how you got that out of anything I said.

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Sability@reddit

Seriously, I want an answer on how that was their take-away.

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nostril_spiders@reddit

Sysads do work, hr prevent chairs from floating away

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jamespo@reddit

Sounds like a good teambuilding exercise (that could be done once a month)

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Unable-Entrance3110@reddit

I am quite the opposite. I am way more productive in the office. It comes down to environment. We have two young dogs that are somewhat needy. We also just don't have the dedicated space in our small house for each of us (my wife and I) to have a separate office space so we share one. She is on meetings all day long as part of her work, so you can imagine what that's like. During COVID, I was given special dispensation to work in the office as soon as it was allowed. Those were some good days; No traffic at all and like 5 total people in the office... My office space is very quiet and peaceful even during full office occupancy. This is because IT has been shunted to a floor that is not heavily used. I get a lot done there and rarely have to deal with any walk-ins. That said, it is nice to have the flexibility of WFH. I do take advantage of it, but only one day a week in order to keep the dogs from having to be crated.

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chron67@reddit

I wish all employers would just allow flexibility. I like having an office to go to sometimes when home is hectic. Like being able to work from home to dodge the traffic and the constant interruptions at the office. Arbitrary attendance policies just make no sense. Our metrics show productivity is higher remote and its not particularly close. But sure, let's all go to the office three days a week to be less effective!

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chron67@reddit

My team is on three days a week (though supposedly leadership has gotten enough pushback that it may change back to two days next quarter). I get far less done in the office. Accounting will come to my area to hound me to work tickets for them that are not even assigned to my team (that I supervise). If I am on a call/hosting a meeting they will interrupt it despite me obviously being busy or, even worse, just stand at my shoulder until the call/meeting ends. I had one accountant stand at my desk like that for an hour. LADY DO YOU NOT HAVE WORK TO DO??? Turns out she wanted help ordering a phone. Could that not have been an email? Teams message? Smoke signal? Nope, let's go stand behind IT while they have a meeting about security compliance.

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wonkifier@reddit

I’ve made it clear to my manager that any day I’m in the office is a day I will be at best 50% productive. And so I only go in when an exec visits, so I can be at whatever group thing they want, so I just give up on being productive altogether

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mini4x@reddit

I go in when I feel like it, which is more often than not, but I have a 10 min commute, half the time I am there other than seeing people in the kitchen to get coffee, I don't usually talk to anyone.

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Turak64@reddit (OP)

That's what I've been asked to do

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Holmesless@reddit

Asked infers you have a choice

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RockinOneThreeTwo@reddit

Technically it implies, inferring is a task the reader performs.

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OddWriter7199@reddit

Thank you

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RockinOneThreeTwo@reddit

You are welcome

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jacksummasternull@reddit

This is why no one likes us.

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RockinOneThreeTwo@reddit

Because we like to better our knowledge?

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RikiWardOG@reddit

No because we often times end up being pedantic asses. You're arguing semantics that don't matter. This is reddit not a room full of English teachers.

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RockinOneThreeTwo@reddit

I think you're taking this far more seriously than anyone else is lol.

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jacksummasternull@reddit

Technically, he got the joke that you didn't.

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mustang__1@reddit

Thanks Homer Simpson.

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Sceptically@reddit

And if they continue harrassing you about it, report them to HR for harrassment.

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RevLoveJoy@reddit

Finally, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEwlW5sHQ4Q) is 100% apropos.

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kaziuma@reddit

HR simply want you to comply with company policy. They often do not care or will not allow exceptions to policy without an extreme (and temporary) reason, executive management excluded of course. If you want to fight this, based on your remote task role requirements and other factors (such as being alone in the office alone talking to no one all day anyway), then you should go through your manager.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

And often times HR people are the one getting excluded for those policies. Oh in office mandate? Well Stephanie from HR has some family drama and has ben exempt from this policy. Since no one polices HR, they oftentimes practice "Rules for thee but not for mee"

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Sinsilenc@reddit

Thats when you block vpn access to people.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

Well not if HR requires you that Stephanie can work from home. Sadly most HR departments are backed by C suite, so you can only do so much "equality"

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soupcan_@reddit

Currently fighting this battle at work. Our CIO is trying to negotiate (because when you’re senior management, security policy is up for debate I guess) to get the HRO to stop using personal, unmanaged PCs for VPN access. HRO says people should have 1 PC at most (something I agree with, it’s hard keeping PCs patched if they’re sitting in a drawer). She has 3. In fact everyone in HR has at least 2. HRO has an anal “no WFH” policy, well they all get to WFH. Our HR department is the single worst part of my workplace.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

Oh damn, that really sucks ... Wish you all the best!

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TheFatAndUglyOldDude@reddit

Yes, because someone dying isn't extreme enough. I agree, "This is policy, not my performance. Talk to my manager."

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Solkre@reddit

You know the picture of the astronaut on the moon witnessing the destruction of earth. HR would ask if he's still coming in.

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TheFatAndUglyOldDude@reddit

And figuring out a way to not pay worker's comp.

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kaziuma@reddit

Based on the OP it seems an exception was granted for a recent bereavement, but enough time has now passed that HR wants them to return to normal policy.

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TheFatAndUglyOldDude@reddit

You're right, which is why it goes to his manager. Let the manager do his job, and if he isn't doing it to your liking, you deal with him, not the employee directly. HR (and everyone else) hates it when the chain of command is skipped going up the chain, but it works the same way coming back down it. Let the manager manage his department. It's what he's being paid to do.

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AGenericUsername1004@reddit

HR are just there to inconvenience the employees and to protect the employer. In my 20 years of working I've only found one HR person I've actually seen try to help employees with empathy and understanding.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

Ive had a Head of HR scream at me why we did not turn off a emplyee that left 3 months ago. When i told him "It never showed up for me in your portal" he went off on a tangent about how stupid IT is, and how they always need to handhold everyone and show them everything. When i interrupted him and showed him, that infact there is nothing for me to see in there, like nothing at all, he took a step back and said "Let me have a look at it". After poking around in my browser he determined that "You should see stuff in here, strange that it does not show up". Only to then get a email 10 minutes later with the remark "Works now" Turnes out they had completely overhauled their groups and permissions and just forgot to update the offboarding flow to include the new groups for IT. Like literally IT was the ONLY group that had been forgotten. Never heard a "sorry" or anything alike.

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Ruevein@reddit

i have been left off new hire emails before and its funny cause all HR says is "Opps my bad!" but i am walking back 30 miles after my belt got hooked on the axel of the bus they pushed me infront of.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

In my experience HR it THE department not taking accountability for their faults. I have even been pressured by HR to "do a fast onboarding" because they forgot to even create the new employee in their system. No amount of telling the "We dont have hardware for this person" could reason with them. I was told to "make it work" ended up purchasing the same model from a retailer ... but was such a shitshow.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

I would bring it up each time that guy had a problem. "Oh, are you sure it's not like last time where you forgot to give us access?"

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

I didnt do that, i was on my way out anyways so i didnt want to create more drama then its worth.

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Kiowascout@reddit

Another IT person probably had to show them the error so they could fix it.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

Perhaps the external partner but definetly not someone from the internal IT team. No one was even allowed to look at their admin dashboards, let alone help them with technical issues. That was the only good thing. When they fucked up, the had to fix it by themselves/external partner.

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Unlikely_Zucchini574@reddit

I'd had mostly decent experiences working with HR on projects but occasionally they're weird about access. Which is fine, if they want to make the change according to my instructions that's cool. But it's an odd thing to worry about since I already have access to everyone's email/files and could just give myself access to most HR systems.

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AGenericUsername1004@reddit

I've had this too. When an HR person would add a Termination date on their system when someone resigns then it would create an IT ticket to IT to give us the termination date to allow us to close all their accounts and reclaim licenses etc on the last day. Had Head of HR complaining that noone had actioned a user's termination and they were still getting emails, I pointed out the process (which they demanded and agreed upon years previously). And found out their team hadn't ever told us or even closed the user's account on the HR system. Still no apology.

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Jaereth@reddit

lmao almost ALL my term tickets come in "NEEDS ATTENTION" status in my queue because they create the ticket 5 or 6 days after firing the person but still set the "term date" as when it actually happened. HR is a fucking joke.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

Yup, seen it so many times. Like, why is IT expected to do an indepth analysis of their systems before escalating but everyone else just says "well must be a problem on your end" ...

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AGenericUsername1004@reddit

The amount of times I've had to do [this XKCD](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tech_support_cheat_sheet_2x.png) to teach someone how to use the system that they purchased but never bothered to get training from the vendor when they had it installed is way too high. I have to know how to do MY job (and cover my ass in the process) as well as learn other's job because it is a "program" or "system" and thats IT's responsibility now. I've had to learn, SPSS, SAP, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Docusign and a load of other programs purely because the business team purchased it and now its my problem.

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Das_Rote_Han@reddit

Reminds me of an audit finding we had some years ago. An employee was separated but IT didn't remove access and validate they didn't try and take data (email or usb) in a timely manner. The person left the company but the hiring manager didn't enter the termination into the HR system for 6 months. We did our part at the 6 month mark. Finding was we didn't do it when the employee actually left. The auditor didn't get that the only place that termination lived as in the hiring manager's head for 6 months - no system of record indicated the person left. Bonus - the person was still getting paid for the 6 months because payroll didn't know they left either.

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ReputationNo8889@reddit

Damn, that seems almost deliberate :D

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PrintShinji@reddit

Shoutouts to the HR lady that asked me why I called in sick 3 times in the past 4 months. Well its because I had surgery twice, and for the third I slept so bad for 3 days straight that I barely could walk let alone work. The lady told me "Oh yeah sometimes I have issues sleeping too, I walk around a bit and then I can sleep again" Gee thanks HR lady, I'll keep it in mind. Def never walked around when I wake up at 1 am til 6 am.

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AGenericUsername1004@reddit

I've started a new job recently and disclosed I have some disabilities when I first joined which can sometimes make me unable to work. Been here 4 months now and unfortunately had 3 days sick in this time due to some flare ups. My manager has recently been told by HR that if I am sick again they will flag me up for disciplinary and go through the motions for dimissal. Apparently HR policy is you are not allowed more than 3 sick days in 6 months or you get put on a monitoring situation... Edit: my manager is on my side and is basically going to tell them to F off because the team needs the skills I provide because the rest of the team don't have them.

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PersonBehindAScreen@reddit

What kills me about this policy is they have the mind to make this policy, I assume to make sure work keeps pushing forward, but not the mind to acknowledge how absolutely fucked your workplace is if someone can’t miss 3-4 days in 4 months

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Unlikely_Zucchini574@reddit

Sounds like an ADA issue.

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MrMemes9000@reddit

HR should never be allowed to do this wtf.

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BoredTechyGuy@reddit

I see an easy win lawsuit in your near future.

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TheMagecite@reddit

HR is there for the business not the employees. They just give the impression they are there for the employees.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

HR is there to protect the person who can fire them. HR will implement all sorts of bad policies that hurt the company.

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deadzol@reddit

And we use to do that 5 days a week.

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Turak64@reddit (OP)

We also used to live in caves.

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deadzol@reddit

But 5 days in the office was only a few years ago! I’m fully onboard with full time WFH especially for tech people where the systems they’re working on don’t care if you’re in the next room or the next state. So yeah, I get not wanting to continue the push forward. My worst experience with this was uhh “well just say awhile ago” I was working in an office in CLE but after two years they decided they wanted more “face time” so I had to commute TU-TH to CHI. Yeah, that makes sense when all the systems I worked on were in CLE.

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CaptainBrooksie@reddit

This sounds like typical HR busy work. They have to get involved with everything to justify their ever growing head count.

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Austin1975@reddit

Nah HR doesn’t give a shit and probably wants to work from home too. Some leader or board is pushing this stuff and HR is responsible for managing or documenting. If they know they have to enforce. When my employees need extra time off or flexibility I just work it out directly with the employee and maybe my boss. OP’s manager should do the same if they can given the circumstances. Once you involve HR they kinda have to act… “policies” bleh.

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Plantherblorg@reddit

Closer. It's because somewhere in the company they want people working on-site three days a week. It could be that the work in that area benefits from the rule, but to keep them from whining about it for being singled out it has been made a company wide policy.

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7fw@reddit

They signed a 20 year lease on office space, with a massive loan to refurbish the space and it's just been sitting there for 3 years. Terrible expense to show investors so they start needing people in the office to show their investments are worthy and won't get fired.

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Plantherblorg@reddit

Yes, exactly. Every company is public and has to answer to shareholders. Absolutely. And shareholders don't attend meetings where they discuss things like turnover, talent, projects, etc. They pretend they do but they're just imaginary meetings designed to trick people like 7fw. The only thing they care about is if a contractually obligated expense is justified.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

People need to realize HR does not protect the company, it protects the most powerful person who has control over HR. This must be some executive who mandated this and HR is afraid to cross them.

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Plantherblorg@reddit

The leap of logic you just made to distance the people who make corporate decisions from the corporation itself is astounding. HR enforces the corporate policies and helps ensure they comply with the law. Corporate policies are set by the executives in the corporation.

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223454@reddit

When I asked about WFH at my last job they said no one could because we had a few people with jobs that had to be on site. So literally 100+ people couldn't work from home, at all, because a few people couldn't.

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Plantherblorg@reddit

There you go. There could also be other issues that prevent it from being an option like insurance, an IT team that's unable to get everything in place to do it securely and manage that infrastructure, some kind of weird insurance rider that requires a minimum number of people to be in the building if any number of people are in the building (for instance to handle safety incidents, or security incidents), there's really an endless list of actual reasons this could be the case.

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223454@reddit

It's not. I've checked into it. If management had an excuse like that they'd be sure everyone knew about it. It's just internal politics and old managers that refuse to change.

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Plantherblorg@reddit

I'm so tired of this generic response. Why you assume that you know everything about the company, how it's operating, why it makes any particular decision, and whether or not they would tell you all the reasons associated with any given decision is beyond me. At the end of the day, you cannot work remotely. Just like any other aspect of a job (the thing you're doing, the location, the salary, the benefits, the PTO policy, perks) if you're unhappy with the offer from their end, you're free to look for employment elsewhere.

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223454@reddit

I'm a manager. I talk to and meet with other managers. I talk to and meet with VIPs daily. I work closely with HR and other key people for contracts and policy decisions. This is a relatively small office. I'm much more closely tied into the "why" of things than most people. I have no idea why you think you know more about my employment and office than I do. Some of us actually do know what's going on within our own office. You're correct that I'm free to leave, but you're wrong that we should just give up on trying to make things better.

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Plantherblorg@reddit

> I have no idea why you think you know more about my employment and office than I do Never said I did. In fact I said quite the opposite. > You're correct that I'm free to leave, but you're wrong that we should just give up on trying to make things better. I don't recall ever saying the second piece, but if you want to put words in my mouth, you're certainly welcome to do so.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

I'm so tired of this generic response. Why you assume that you know everything about the company, how it's operating, why it makes any particular decision, and whether or not they would tell you all the reasons associated with any given decision is beyond me.

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cs_major@reddit

We had the janitors complaining about not being able to WFH. I'm like wtf in what world would you ever be able to work from home...and also everyone else working from home makes less mess in the office for you to deal with.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

> and also everyone else working from home makes less mess in the office for you to deal with. Might not even need janitors if the company became remote only.

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rockstarsball@reddit

roomba with a remote control?

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lkeltner@reddit

so like a demo derby game? sign me up!

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rockstarsball@reddit

it'd definitely be a perk of the job

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ADTR9320@reddit

It's mostly to justify use of the property lease. It doesn't look "good" to have a building sit and look abandoned.

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Plantherblorg@reddit

You're totally correct. This is mostly why every single company does it. For sure, you nailed what millions of companies are doing.

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Sability@reddit

The (conspiracy) theory I've seen is that it's mostly higher-ups and C-tier trying to justify rental payments on offices. Our place has been pushing for less WFH recently, and the fact our company rents out a 20+ floor office in a major city is probably a factor in that decision. Removing a rented office space the company has held since decades before COVID lockdowns is a difficult sell, far easier to just force people back into those offices "because it improves collaboration".

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Plantherblorg@reddit

There's likely leases in play too.

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krilu@reddit

Layer 9

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Mysteryman64@reddit

Usually when I hear shit like this, it's one of three things: * Pointy haired boss wants peons in seats to lord over them since they enjoyed having their little fiefdom. * Management class is incompetent and unable to justify their position without being seen in person doing stuff, think the type of people who do nothing but sit in meetings all day. * Company leadership has ties to the local real estate market and they use RTOnmandates to prop up the value of their real estate holdings. Frequently they have a separate company that leases the office space to the productive company as a way to siphon off more assets from the company and use "overhead" justifications to manipulate profit share plans and the like.

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mini4x@reddit

Why are all HR roles also Senior Blah Blah, or VP of Blah Blah too, it's all cheifs up there.

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CaptainBrooksie@reddit

Because they get to make it up as they go along and then get to define you as Helpdesk Level 0 Bitch despite having 20 years experience managing everything from the PBX to the ESXi cluster.

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ChmMeowUb3rSpd@reddit

We must work for the same company. Three arbitrary days a pay period I have to be in the office even though I come in on any day I might have some touch labor to do which doesn't normally correspond to the days I selected.

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BK_Rich@reddit

Our company is doing a single “anchor day” once per week. It’s kind of nice to get out of the house and see people that day but I am extremely more productive at home for my job, I barely get anything done while in the office, we having our team meeting, shoot the shit, go to lunch and afternoon is pretty mediocre before my 1.5hr commute home, it’s definitely a waste for my company but if they want to pay me to be social that day, it’s fine with me, I know other places have much stricter polices so it’s good.

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CornFedIABoy@reddit

My employer has a rule that any necessary travel to or from our office during the workday is paid time. Commuting before and after the normal workday is not. So my boss intentionally schedules our semi-regular all-team onsite meetings to start an hour after the regular start time and end an hour before with instructions we log on at home before coming in and again when we get home.

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Successful_Ad2287@reddit

I am hybrid, 2 days in 2 days WFH. And I love it. Most of my team comes in on the same days. I schedule all of my meetings on my in-office days and try to get lunch with coworkers while I’m there. OP - if you’re in the office with 2 people you don’t even know the names of, maybe take that time to get to know them.

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HexTalon@reddit

It absolutely makes no sense for some people though. For example, I work for Amazon in a security role. I'm the only person that's in a particular time zone (PST/PDT), and getting coverage for that time zone was part of the reason there was headcount allocated and that I was hired. We've been 3 day RTO for a year, and now it's going to be 5 day RTO starting in January. The office I go into is usually about 10% full, will never have anyone from my team, and I can't discuss the work that I do with other teams unless it's a security issue with them or their own team specifically. People will come in for 2 hours and then leave, usually in the morning or the middle of the day. The few times I've tried to engage with people around me has been unsuccessful, and no one is really happy to be there. I'm also not the type of person to have ever been reliant on the office for my friend group. I have local friends and family that fill that role. If you enjoy it great - keep doing it. That doesn't mean your view on RTO/WFH is the right one, or even commonplace, and you shouldn't impose it upon others.

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BrilliantEffective21@reddit

if you have to drive far, and you're not a social creature, then yeah .. i get your point. if you're underpaid, yeah, i get your point. if you just don't like the office, then yeah, i get your point.

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fourpuns@reddit

I’m full time from home and they closed our office as a result and as much as I like being At home having no in person collaboration space actually sucks. Like one day a month and maybe periodically at project kick offs and such I’d really like it.

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radiantmaple@reddit

Not much point in having teams in the office unless the whole team is in the office on the same days. "Collaboration" lol.

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infinityprime@reddit

Go to the office and get on Teams because no one else on your team is in your state.

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supacool2k@reddit

I'm a cloud architect and I've been in IT for 20 years. I'm the guy who declines jobs that aren't 100% remote. I exchange my time and talent for money. Unless your willing to pay me for travel time, I'll never work in the office again. I've been around the industry, I see how these companies work. I'm certainly never going to relocate my family to another city for a job either.

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chocotaco1981@reddit

Commercial real estate investments and out of touch management

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AmbitiousCut0@reddit

Same situation for me except I can’t WFH

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vondur@reddit

The only thing to do is look for a position in a company that offers remote work. Sucks.

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TostiBanaanPindakaas@reddit

I work in a complete different country than whole my team. Still need 3 days working from my local office..

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ChiefBroady@reddit

That doesn’t make any sense at all. It would be the same for me. None of my team members even work in the same state.

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ChiefBroady@reddit

I am full time wfh. Even if I would “rto” (I’ve never been to the office) - all my team members are in other locations. I couldn’t connect with my team any better. I’d probably just get interrupted doing my work by users not opening tickets and just showing up at my desk. If they’d ever force me to work in the office, I’d look for something else immediately.

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darkonex@reddit

I went full remote this year after being full in office before Covid and honestly I will never take an in office job if I ever lost this one. I get way more done in my private space and being able to focus, plus all the commute time and gas savings!

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No_Resolution_9252@reddit

then quit and find another job. But you probably won't. People like you ruined hybrid work AGAIN, by getting greedy with it.

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s_s@reddit

The point is you're supposed to form comradery and brotherhood. Like a union.

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grouchy-woodcock@reddit

Based on what I've read and inferred (I'm not a 'decision maker'), RTO is really only about 2 things: 1. Justifying office space leases and 2. Control. Some executives and managers need to have that sweet, sweet control. Both reasons are stupid and only serve to limit prospective employees and piss off the current ones. RTO is the primary cause of remote work scarcity.

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rich_dot_ward@reddit

Guess I'm on the more lucky side as I do 2 weeks at home and 1 week in the office. All I'm there for though is to pick up paper of the printer, put inside a file and file away. Maybe 20 files a week 🤔 All my actual work I can do better and faster at home with no interruptions. I even make sure I have my full 1 hour lunch when at work.

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Happy_Kale888@reddit

Perhaps if you where in more you would know there names?

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Hacky_5ack@reddit

Stop boomer

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khobbits@reddit

As a sysadmin who works in a city with working public transport, I don't really agree, and I encourage my team to come into the office regularly. I do understand that on an individual basis, most people would be happier at home, not wasting their time on a commute, and the costs associated with transport and working from the office. However, there is a huge loss in cross training, and increase in friction. While we have internal documentation, and time in the calendar for 'training', and 'stand ups' where people communicate what they are working on, there are huge efficiencies in the watercooler / corridor chats, and team chats. For example, 30 minutes ago, I was making a tweak to a GPO, and suggested one of our more senior help desk guys slides his chair to my desk for 90 seconds, while I make the change. In the past, I have done training sessions walking junior staff through the steps and procedures for making a GPO change, but we don't encourage helpdesk to make GPO changes on their own, so in the 6 months since they were last shown, this person has had little to no hands on experience. I don't have the free time to put the bat signal out on teams, book a meeting, and spend 5+ minutes rounding up remote people before making this change. It's just one of my many tasks today, but I do have the time to glance over my monitor, see who looks free, and invite them to take a gander. Those 90 seconds, makes the employee feel a bit more valued, like they are given the opportunity to learn, and to help further their career, and it cost me 5 seconds of effort, assuming we are in the office.

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Fair-Morning-4182@reddit

It depends on the personality of your staff. Honestly, I hate the chats and prefer the "pre-planned" communication over spontaneity. It stresses me out and being around people exhausts me. Unfortunately it seems that the majority of people are unable to effectively communicate remotely. My emails don't get answered, my texts don't get answered, I get asked whether something is happening today when it is in my calendar. I grew up on the internet, and prefer to stay there. The small talk, inefficiency, and wasted money and time involved with working in an office feels like a complete waste of my time and life. It makes me feel like a slave. When I work remote, it feels like I'm working on my terms. I can do some laundry and let my dog out. I can relax since I'm actually alone in a peaceful environment.

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Bright_Arm8782@reddit

If you want a response to things, make a voice call and ask, everything else, don't expect an answer.

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Fair-Morning-4182@reddit

Why is that? I'm not expecting a response immediately, but the same day would be nice. I respond to everyone quickly and don't miss texts. It's not that difficult.

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Bright_Arm8782@reddit

Because you're not getting responses with text and email. Some people may have IT emails going direct to their deleted items folder, using the phone forces a response. Pick up the phone and call them, that gets you an answer quickly and you can deal with whatever, close the ticket and move on. It also counts as an attempt at communication if you have a 3 strikes system to work with. This is from a gen x person who spent a little while at an MSP and learned to run calls down to completion rather than letting them linger.

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khobbits@reddit

This is why we have cultural fit stages as part of the interview process. But it does also come down to personal growth and goals. In the 10 years I've been at my current company, I've had people who join helpdesk and are just happy to do that job, a mix between enjoying helping users out but also no real desire to be in management. On the flip side, I've had employees who join hungry, that if they aren't offered a lead position in 3 years are out the door. In my industry, we need a bit of a mix. While a lot of the work can be done in PowerShell, terraform, or in a cloud providers web panel, I also have staff babysitting conference calls with investors or large clients, and others who spend their time mostly racking servers and configuring switches. Some of our more quiet staff would waste hours trying to jerry rig something in our datacenter, or ride the train 1 hour back to the office to pick up a tool, while our more boisterous staff would go to the canteen area of the shared datacenter, and ask people there if anyone could help them.

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Fair-Morning-4182@reddit

That's understandable. I'm definitely the "hungry" type. I would love to work with C levels and executives. The problem is with my environment is "everyone wears every hat". I'm learning higher level technical skills, project management, network architecture, I'm happy. But I'm also helping Sally print for the 4th time this week and it makes me want to tear my eyeballs out. I'm pulled in too many directions. I want to have meaningful challenges on my shoulders, but I get in trouble for not rolling out the red carpet in the emotional labor department, when it's simply not my skill set.

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Moontoya@reddit

So... Pay rises are dependent not on the quality or volume of your work but on sufficient ass kissing Not on hard data but on someone's ego and feefees Yeah...no thanks

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khobbits@reddit

I think you'll find that the quality of someone's work is often judged by how happy you make the people you are supposed to be assisting. Most companies have a pay rise policy that allows for a certain amount each year. Depending on how well the company is doing, that can be a max of 4% or 8%, etc. Getting a pay rise approved by management above that usually requires an emotional plea. "James has been killing it for the last 2 years. He's been with us for 3 years now, and is well due a proper pay rise, we wouldn't want him to be poached by a competitor...". The right conversation, and a good impression, might unlock a 15% pay rise. I just got an employee a good double digit pay rise, on a year when most pay rises were 2%, and we made people redundant.

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Moontoya@reddit

30 year career thus far, currently with an MSP that shockingly rewards me on my performance, not on whether I stroked a non technical persons ego the right way. Ive worked for plenty of places where optics ruled the day - they were ALL in massive technical debt, badly managed with piss poor policies covering technology use. From the early days when having an ISDN connection marked you out as a low ping bastard - the companys playing stupid human games have behaved that way and mostly bumbled along. Believe me, I do understand the necessity for making nice, Im not a complete sociopath - if I go that route, Im adding stress and workload for no appreciable return, it becomes "you should have known about x", you get stuck with all those extra duties you picked up to be "nice" or to lend a hand, you get blamed for shit going wrong because of "chinese-telephone" rumours and gossip and because users are frankly technically illiterate.

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KoalaOfTheApocalypse@reddit

Those "water cooler and corridor chats" eat a significant amount productivity away from me. I *always* am way more productive on WFH days. I "upskill" the help desk staff while remote more than anyone else except the help desk manager. Help desk staff always know I'm available in Teams to answer questions or help out. It saves me SO much productivity helping thru Teams vs the extended time in person takes. I very frequently remote control with them and explain things. Then they have that in text that they can go back and reference. I'm not here to build relationships or stop for random chats in the corridor. I'm here to work. I have too much on my plate to waste time with pointless chit chat. If there needs to be a discussion about work stuff, then we can set aside time dedicated to it or if it's low priority just drop a quick note in Teams. Additionally, I invariably spend more hours per day working at home vs in the office, for a variety of reasons. Having to be in office is nothing but a complete waste of time and significant loss of productivity for me 99% of the time.

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khobbits@reddit

Out of curiosity, how do you measure that productivity? If it's in lines of code, or tickets closed, work from home almost always wins. However, those watercooler chats, where you hear that Steph in finance is going on maternity leave next week, or that the Wi-Fi has been dropping out in teams calls on the 4th floor, I also count as part of productivity. Having the department come across as pro-active, rather than reactive, is a good way to raise the opinion of the team, and those things can end up being reflected in budget.

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Moontoya@reddit

No they aren't Tickets are productivity , you're describing gossip and hearsay and brown nosing IT are not babysitters , we aren't there to wipe digital noses or otherwise manage the wetware. That's HR / management/ policy not IT

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MissionSpecialist@reddit

It's plausible that you could overhear a conversation that would let you prepare for (or maybe even prevent) a bad decision that you wouldn't otherwise learn about until much later. At least, if your company is small enough to be a single site. Having spent more than a decade working at large global companies where most of my team wasn't in the same **country** much less office, the lack of capability for some people (mostly managers) to efficiently deal with remote work is amusing. They must be banking on their company never being successful enough to expand beyond what they can see from the parking lot, because the skills you need for WFH to be successful are the same skills you need to work in a multi-office environment.

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Moontoya@reddit

I refer you to the tenet "if its not written down, it never happened" overhearing a conversation is dubious ground, if youre not part of the conversation why are you listening in, isnt that the definition of a nosy busybody or tattle tale ready to run to HR/management ? Data protection doesnt just mean keeping bits safely on a server, nor does HIPAA / GDPR only refer to electronic records - someone dicussing a client may be sharing priveleged information and if youre listening in, oops theyre doing something naughty that gets you all in trouble. Look, Im not saying anticipate needs/issues - Im saying they have to be boundaried, structured and policy lead. You shouldnt \_need\_ to go looking for issues or stuff thats falling down, it \_SHOULD\_ be documented, it should have processes, tickets should be logged, requests raised - you know a good old fashioned "paper trail". Also - have you considered that users, by and large do not know their arse from their elbow, simply parroting what theyve heard or read "I cant do X because its the server" (when its fucking dns again). So if I were to listen in on those water cooler chats or people bitching, Id be listening to morons talking utter drivel. Picture users who word salad like Trump, bloviating about how its the firewalll stopping their emails from being delivered (no, they juxtaposed 2 letters) and blaming IT - is that REALLY what youre encouraging ? Look, I get it, Im not wholly against paying attention to the users etc but it has to be supported by a proper system, its an extra its not your primary response driver - ya dig ?

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MissionSpecialist@reddit

I'm definitely not talking about standing around listening to users; that's what help desk and deskside support are for. I meant other groups within IT and InfoSec. Those conversations are rarely sensitive (and are presumed not to be, given annual training on our obligation to have sensitive conversations in private, which a hallway or lunchroom explicitly is not), and I agree that we shouldn't **need** to overhear things, but processes and humans are flawed, and sometimes groups that should have been included in a decision-making process aren't. An organization should never rely on what is effectively dumb luck to make up for a process failure, but when opportunity strikes, you either take advantage of it or deal with a bigger problem later on. I'm not saying that this is a justification for mandatory RTO (it isn't), or that it's even likely in a company of any significant size (it's not), but it is one small advantage of being in a shared space with coworkers.

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Moontoya@reddit

Garibaldi principle. "And what kind of head of security would I be if I let people like me know things I'm not supposed to know. I know what I know because I have to know it, and if I don't have to know it, I don't tell me or let anybody else tell me either"

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KoalaOfTheApocalypse@reddit

"gossip and brown nosing" Congratulations, you've successfully identified middle management. Please go to the "extra work and unnecessary complications" room to receive your prize!

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khobbits@reddit

Then I guess I disagree. IT's job is to provide a service to the business. To enhance business productivity. IT should be a force multiplier, should make peoples lives better, not the bad guys who you have to fight to get your job done. As people with analytical minds, who understand technology, our insight can provide a lot more value to the business than doing password resets. I prefer to be involved at the beginning of projects, and head off issues before they become blockers. Nobody likes unexpected IT spends. I'm working on our CAPEX budget for 2025 now. If the WIFI needs replaced, or we need to do a WIFI survey, it needs costed now.

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Moontoya@reddit

I too prefer to be involved in the process - but that's people involving me NOT me gossiping in the corridor with Tina from Purchasing Replacing the wifi - hard data not users feelings, not users bitching at hte water cooler. How old is it, when was it installed, are users reporting the problem, does the monitoring platform indicate problems etc. No ticket, no fixit, mindreading is not a service offered. Ive been the people pleaser, Ive done the yakking with people, Ive done the cosying up, Ive done the proactively asking questions and seeking issues - you know what it got me ? More work, more stress, zero thanks, next to nil reward. These days I report what I find, I give advice - if the client says no, they say no - and I get to say "I told you so" a few weeks/months later. Perhaps its makes me cynical and jaded, perhaps Im just tired of the stupid bullshit games humans play, the drama llamas, the office cliques, the manipulation and gaslighting, forcibly holding my tongue in the face of ugly behaviour including racism, bigotry, sectarianism, misandry and misogny. Perhaps its being on the Au/ADHD spectrum and being tired of having to mask constantly around "normals", acting a role for my job on top of the job itself. different nations, different approaches, different people - I disagree with the social butterfly approach - but that doesnt make -you- wrong, I respect your approach and position, this is by no means a suggestion that the way I do things is the right way or one true way.

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khobbits@reddit

You are right, I do prefer to be included officially, at the beginning of the process, in proper meeting rooms, etc. But for some reason, IT does sometime get a bit forgotten, in non-IT projects. For example we were doing a remodel of a kitchen in the office. Facilities didn't really bring that up with us, because they didn't think it was really important. A couple days before they were due to rip out the cabinets, I was talking to the facilities team about something aircon related, and he mentioned they were going to have to move the unit in the kitchen as well. One of the exec's in the room next door had been complaining about wanting a dedicated printer, but we didn't have any ethernet drops in the part of the room he wanted. We managed to combine the works, and have the ethernet drop installed for his printer, at the same time the cable was ran for the kitchen telephone, because they shared a wall, and saved a callout. I do think this might be a little different if you are working via an MSP, as you probably aren't as fully engaged with the client companies as much, but I don't know enough about your company to say that for sure.

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Moontoya@reddit

Oh no, they forget about us too and buy shit and sign up for things without telling us, duplicating systems or flat out making support impossible Like a client who moved their warehouse but didn't tell us until they booked us in to setup their computers There were no power runs, there were no network patches, there was nowhere to put their three full height racks and the truly fun bit, no broadband and only 12/2 dsl available. Thankfully we have a business development sales guy whos role is the dog n pony show stuff. He communicates with them and pokes them into raising requests and logging tickets. Most clients adhere to the policies we hash out when signing the contracts, The pack of thinking and consideration from others is a primary reason I refuse to babysit users. Why should I bust my ass on their behalf is I don't really exist as a person to them ?

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Hotshot55@reddit

> owever, those watercooler chats, where you hear that Steph in finance is going on maternity leave next week, or that the Wi-Fi has been dropping out in teams calls on the 4th floor, I also count as part of productivity. How is someone in another department going on leave relevant to IT? Sure you might disable the account, but you should already have a process in place for that. Same with the wifi, have some sort of monitoring in place to track these issues instead of just overhearing them by chance.

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khobbits@reddit

Well, in a case similar to the first example, we put together a little hardware swap. We had a little chat, about if she had everything she needed for her leave, and actually indicated that the child was going to be moving into the space she had been using as a home office. We ended up arranging for some of the equipment to be sent back to the office, and she was given a small laptop as a 'keeping in touch' device. Until we mentioned it, she had actually forgotten that the desk chair she was using at home (which was borrowed from the office when covid hit) could be returned to the office, and didn't need to take up space in her garage. We also did a bit of paper work in a hurry, because there were some renewals that would go through far easier with her at the helm, than her replacement, as the costs needed spreading across different departments. As for the wifi. While we have monitoring for if an access point goes down, we don't have any real monitoring for intermittent connectivity. In one case recently, a neighbor has causing a bit of interference, and we needed to manually configure an access point to broadcast stronger, to better cover the new 'meeting pods' installed at the end of the floor, rather than leaving the AP set to auto. But the whole point is, these are just random token examples. I've gotten heads up of offices closing, of a impending buy out, of business restructuring and industry social events.

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kerosene31@reddit

Our big manager told us flat out that they saw a noticeable productivity jump when everyone was home for covid. They were expecting the opposite.

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KoalaOfTheApocalypse@reddit

Return to office was never about productivity. The whole "build relationship/in person collab" is also bullshit. Return to office is fully and only for management to get their feeling of control over people back and for all levels of management to get the brown nosing that falls off when people are not in the office to kiss their butt every day. It's all and only about management ego. Water cooler chats. GMAFB 🙄🙄🙄

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Scouttsc@reddit

There are jobs that should be home office, at the end you do your things with time and quality.

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WebsiteIsDownDetroit@reddit

Have never had a remote day company in years...must be nice Even 2 days WFH would be sweet, don't take it for granted!

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Fuck_Ppl_Putng_U_Dwn@reddit

I think the whole "you have to work in the office" mentality, is really stupid. There have been numerous studies, both from tech firms and academia, talking about the productivity benefits for the company. No manager or HR person can answer this question. If a person has to commute into work and then commute back, that leaves a fixed number of hours in between. Q. What about the people who don't commute, yet get some extra work done during the "commuting time", that would not have been otherwise possible? Not to mention the joy in life that people get from; family, exercise, not being in traffic, feeling good about helping the environment cause you are not in traffic, peace of mind with your commute, money earned as you didn't have to spend as much on gas, food, car maintenance, helping fellow drivers as there are less people on the road. The list is fucking endless. I truly believe that the "reason" for return to the office is:[Employers used return-to-office to make workers quit](https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4800828-office-mandates-cause-attrition/) After COVID, the world had changed. We should never, ever have to go back to previous working modalities, just because that's "how we used to do it". Well, we used to use a scythe and oxen to plow fields, then we invented tractors and combines. We used to file literal paper work in binders and place said binders on shelves, then we invented computers with graphical user interfaces and digital file systems. We have seen a better way, we know it works, just need to push the majority of company's, in this direction, by having the best talent relocate to those companies, that offer remote work. This will send 'a big fuck you' to the other company's who do not support it, and eventually, shift the balance of power, back to the workers from the corporate hand that feeds and slaps you at the same time. Good luck friends, good luck. 🫡

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tristanIT@reddit

I'm sitting in the office today twiddling my thumbs. It's a ghost town on Fridays but I'm required to be here. Just waiting till it gets dead enough to dip out.

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InvestigatorCold4662@reddit

I hear that. My job is mostly remote, but there are times when we have to go into the office. Sometimes it's because something like a server DRAC isn't working and we need to go and flip a switch or like Wednesday when I had to go in an image a box. My work is cool enough that we really only have to go in when it's necessary, but there was a time when they wanted up to go in a mandatory 1 or 2 days per work. Luckily, that didn't last long. Sorry you're going through it. It really does sound like going in for you is completely pointless. If I didn't know better, I'd say your managers are jealous that you have a job that can be done remotely. That seems to be a common theme in offices these days.

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Ok_Strawberry4729@reddit

If no one shows up, then how will they know if you’re even there? Just stay home…

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SquizzOC@reddit

Never again, Never again, Never again. Not being required to be in the office ever, makes me enjoy the time I choose to stop into the office when visiting the area. Even when I lived in the area, I'd still come in one day a week just to break things up and it was great for me. But any job that ever forces me to return full time to office, I'll live in a van down by the river first, before accepting that role. Or in my case a 4Runner with a roof top tent. My set up is pretty nice :)

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Fiumanne@reddit

Hey, you don't get to humblebrag and not show any picture about the setup!

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SquizzOC@reddit

https://preview.redd.it/jg4rhytq9ywd1.jpeg?width=2016&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f1ca6891310e3db86ee3ef5a4d991759e0ff40d Main set up.

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Fiumanne@reddit

https://preview.redd.it/r1nj2mjvaywd1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d5c01bcb85501d99a8e6c2572dd8e0a5d270160 Here's my WFH setup. Cheapo Ikea desk, does the job. 100% IT (thankfully)

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SquizzOC@reddit

Nothing wrong with cheapo as long as it does the trick, my drawers are the infamous Alex drawers from Ikea, so are the peg boards and a few other things in my office lol

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SquizzOC@reddit

https://preview.redd.it/ybzylsat9ywd1.jpeg?width=2016&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea3a0b58b93bc7e59507e7bf6e0fa02d25602f4a Back Wall

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SquizzOC@reddit

https://preview.redd.it/rmtd6wju9ywd1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6fa928f7d0ddad4c6436f9cc30c0e5f9d4d68208 Partner in crime

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Fiumanne@reddit

Aww he's great. My SO subtly hints (meaning she spams me with IG reels) that we get a dachshund, I'm not against it now that I recently got full WFH

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SquizzOC@reddit

We are waiting a few years for a dog because they are definitely more work, but with our cats we have the auto feeder, water fountain and litter box (Robot 4) and its an absolute breeze. We leave for a long weekend and make sure a neighbor has our garage door opener just in case we see something wrong on the camera's. It's so easy. GET A PUPPY!

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AsianEiji@reddit

That is me too.... 2 days of the week I need to be in the office though 1 coworker is allowed all days remote. At least you can put a nice sound system and bump up the music, I am in a shared office thats connected with others next door. That being said I ONLY take pto on days im in the office.

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TheCurrysoda@reddit

At least you get to WFH. At my company some departments are allowed to and others don't even get the option.

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StellarJayZ@reddit

Don't quiet quit, just like, don't do shit the days you're there. I'm not sure what metrics they use, but if they see a huge dip on RTO days maybe they get the hint? Or move away.

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DramaticErraticism@reddit

My life IMPLODED during COVID and I had never been more depressed. None of it would have happened if I had still been going into the office Mon-Fri. I like to work from home, but I realized it is not very good for me. Waking up and getting on my laptop in my pajamas all day, is just not a good way for me to live. I go in 2-3 days a week these days and I don't mind at all. I have Mon and Fri at home. I think it's good for folks to get out of their house a bit, even if it's to sit at an office.

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kcornet@reddit

Try going full Winnie The Pooh during Zoom meetings. Does wonders for the soul.

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PrettyBigChief@reddit

"**Only** allowed 2 days at home" .. my team and I only get 1.

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Revzerksies@reddit

I'm 100% in office. I like leaving the house. But hearing from ownership they feel that they get more done in the office. I say they are just as productive in the office at home. They spend most of the day bullshiting in the building making jokes and being unproductive anyway.

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kellyzdude@reddit

I don't know if I could do an office job again. I've been WFH since before the pandemic, and I've been in the office maybe three times in the last two years - two of those were to participate in Teams meetings because the customer bailed and decided to do it remote instead. The main thing I get from going into the office is the socialization that doesn't come from being in agenda'd meetings. Talking to people in the break room and having conversations with people that I might talk to, but otherwise wouldn't have reason to engage with. I still like the current arrangement, once every year or so is enough social interaction for me! 😂

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discosoc@reddit

> The company isn't benefiting They disagree. There is value in knowing you can account for someone's time and place, even beyond the dollars involved. Maybe they just feel better knowing you aren't kicking your feet up watching TV between tasks or something. The solution here is simple: find another job that better fits your work goals.

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RedditNotFreeSpeech@reddit

It's not about logic, it's about control

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Tzctredd@reddit

Confront HR face to face

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silentstorm2008@reddit

Control. They want toy to know that they control you.

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HeroOfIroas@reddit

Meanwhile those of us who will never work remote because our management is from the 1850s: 🫠

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Ruevein@reddit

i got 1 WFH day a week cause i explained i support more then 50% of our firm remotely already. Me being onsite in our head office doesn't change how i support our people that work from home in states we don't have physical offices in. the number of times me being in the office (instead of being 20 minutes away outside of morning and evening traffic) i can count o none hand.

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1h8fulkat@reddit

So quit

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PJFrye@reddit

hahaha. you lucky MoFo's. All priviledged and shit to be complainin' 'bout WFH! I was WFH from March thru June 2020. I have been 5 days a week on-prem since, to support our factory floor. Me and my junior are the ONLY 2 non-factory workers that are not WFH part time out of a team of 25+ (and the rest of the Non-IT office staff). They are mandatory 3 days, but EVERYONE takes Monday/Friday. I have to tell you that the amount of NON-WORK that gets done on Fridays makes me cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs-Insane. Every so often, the subject of "nobody is available on Fridays" comes up and one of those A-Hole schedules a 4PM Friday Meeting just to show everyone that they are working hard. ERGH! Listen, its not that I dont believe in WFH, I just want to be *part* of it. *--cries alone in the empty break room --*

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Szeraax@reddit

Focus on outcomes. If you were WFH more often, what would happen? Would more urgent issues go unresolved? Are you willing to drive in for such events? Does it need to be both of you there? Pitch it to your boss like this: No work from home for my team is liable to make the role a flight risk. We can get near-equal availability for production line support by doing X and Y. But in doing so, the QoL for this product team increases dramatically and helps us keep people here better. Dunno, maybe?

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ImaginaryThesis@reddit

I think a lot of the mandatory office attendance today is to justify the money they spent on commercial real estate. It's also a way to force people to quit to avoid layoffs. Our company has been hybrid but is going more remote-first, and honestly, it's best for our growth because we're not limited to one geographic region for talent. Now, we do have a lot of challenges to address on the IT side of things, but we're eventually finding solutions to help. I feel fortunate, though, because the decision-makers at our company are more focused on performance and results rather than micromanaging. So many jobs can be done from home, I think it's a waste of time and resources to make people sit in cubicles all day to do such jobs.

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Broad_Canary4796@reddit

It really depends on what your job is…. If you are still expected to help with any physical issues or help desk support of any kind then someone does still have to be on site. If all you do is manage azure stuff or monitor AV logs then you have an argument for why come in.

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P00PJU1C3@reddit

Total opposite here, I hate working from home.

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SmallBusinessITGuru@reddit

As someone struggling to find a role, I don't really sympathize all that much. At this point I'm about to be that guy outside with a sign, "Will Manage Network for Food."

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hidperf@reddit

While we don't have mandatory days, I have a supervisor who constantly gives me shit because I'm not in the office. I go in as needed, but there are no offices available for me to hotel in (he's also in control of who gets a space and gave all the offices away). And I have many conversations that need closed doors. Also, if I'm out in the cube farm, I get nothing done because everyone will want to chat.

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Devilnutz2651@reddit

I mean, if you don't like it you know where the door is right?

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Wonderful_Device312@reddit

Before I got laid off for not complying with the return to office mandate... I was literally the only person in the office from my department for months at a time. I'd see my coworkers maybe once or twice a year. But apparently it was really important for the work culture to spend 2 hours driving to a building where I'd spend most of my time trying to keep the lights from turning off.

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restfuladmin@reddit

> The company isn't benefiting Wrong, there are plenty of tax incentives to get you to waste your money to take up the working space of their commercial lease.

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frustratedsignup@reddit

I'm not technically required to go to the office at all, but I do go there one day a week so that I can discuss our upgrade roadmap with a fellow sysadmin. I can agree that going to the office is terribly inefficient. If I do go to the office, I won't get there until 9am and then I have to spend more time at the end of the day to go home. Working remotely, I can sleep an extra hour and still be online at 8am. If anything, I am benefitting from less driving because I generally only have to buy gas once a month now, instead of weekly. If someone gave me a hard time about it, I'd ask them why they want to further contribute to global warming.

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Jaereth@reddit

lol they said "Everyone back to work every day" for me in 2022. Well then it turns out except for the people we don't want to lose who said "We just won't come back" So now we have a weird policy of "absolutely no hybrid roles here ^^^except ^^^for ^^^those ^^^who ^^^are" and it really sucks.

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talexbatreddit@reddit

I worked in an open concept office 2008-11 and it was pretty good -- we were all in five person pods, and the noise level was pretty OK. When I had projects where I needed to talk to a bunch of other departments, it was really convenient to walk over and talk to them, but that kind of project was rare. Mostly it was meet for a daily standup in the morning, and zone out to code the rest of the day. That kind of stuff can be done remotely. I think the whole RTO thing is management worried about their own jobs. If the team can be dine working independently at home, what's the bottom layer of managers for?

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TheAlienBlob@reddit

The point of having people come in is to make bosses feel useful. Make the company feel better about spending money on brick and mortar. Remind you that you are a peon for your betters. It is entirely about control.

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XXLpeanuts@reddit

Bosses want to justify their office space rent, and because they don't want to run a WFH only business or downsize (big effort) they make up bullshit about how everyone should be in office. That and its an evil culture thing where they think everyone but themselves are lazy because they are normally from generational wealth and look down on "poors" who have to earn a living.

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Material-Anybody4760@reddit

I work for local government… we are 1 day in office post Covid. They keep saying it will change to 2 but has not happened yet. As a 57 year old who commuted in California traffic most of his life this is awesome.. never thought I would get to do this. I feel for the folks who don’t get to WFH and the ones complaining about going in once or twice a week… I don’t quite get your gripe.

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p90rushb@reddit

For my job, I remote to a unix system. I can remote to it from my computer, my work computer, or your mom's computer. I can use my internet, my work's internet, or your mom's internet. Yet I am being forced to work at work now. I don't have any coworkers or anyone that holds the same position as I do, and I rarely attend any meetings. No one calls me because why would anyone ever call the unix guy? It is quite silly. Also since I am the only one of me, I'm pretty much expected to be available 24/7/365, but if I'm driving to and from work, ironically that's the time I'm unavailable. If there's something the requires my involvement, often it's when I'm driving that I get a call that something isn't working. I have to tell them to wait and hour because I'm on the road. At home I'd have that sorted in like 2 minutes. What's crazy is that as a salary exempt person I used to have more flexibility before everyone went hell-bent on getting people back into the office. Before, there was a balance. If your job allowed it, naturally working from home at all sorts of odd hours was the best fit. Now it's like I have two jobs... my odd-hours primary job and my 9-5 m-f job, now with an additional 10-15 hours per week of driving and burning gas. HR sends annual employee surveys and wonders why their workers aren't as happy as they used to be. Anyone know why??

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traydee09@reddit

I saw a job posting last year that said 100% remote. You had to be in the office every day, the remote part was the servers you'd be managing were in a different part of the building, so you'd "remote" into them.

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asodfhgiqowgrq2piwhy@reddit

We had an RTO late last year, 3x a week. I just...didn't. Showed up for like 2 hours once a week. Then I got a new manager, and I've been in like twice since that happened. Work's still getting done. Shocking, I know.

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Dizzy_Bridge_794@reddit

Sorry. Been stuck going in every day.

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cryonova@reddit

That sounds like a boring as fuck job either way. Managing 0365 portal without doing any hands infrastructure work would make me go insane. Glad I work in a busy office mid size office with lots of great coworkers to spend my time with

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flummox1234@reddit

> The company isn't benefiting Are you sure about that? Some municipalities give tax breaks to companies for offices in certain locations and them being able to say we have people onsite X number of days is all they're after by making you go onsite. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Also they might need you onsite to justify the capital expenditure on their books or it could be an insurance thing? Basically there is a zero percent change they're not benefiting from you being onsite in some manner.

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Illustrious_Menu1026@reddit

yeah we're going to need you to move your stuff to the office in the basement.

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424f42_424f42@reddit

At minimum, of my 2 days in the office, 75% of the time no one I work with is in the office.

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yupimanerd@reddit

Just don't complain about this at work because you will find your 2 day minimum raised to 4 so that everyone is guaranteed to be there.

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CardiologistTime7008@reddit

It's to maintain some sense of control over you. I'd look for another job...

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Rocknbob69@reddit

"to collaborate". The owners here are using that excuse, but the collaboration is 99% of the time the owner standing outside or people's office/cubicles and wasting their time. He is a loudmouth narc that loves to hear himself talk.

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TheDisapprovingBrit@reddit

We're currently hybrid with a minimum of two days in the office, partly brought on by Covid, and partly because there isn't anywhere near enough parking for everybody to be in the office. On the days I'm in the office, if I'm not there by 8:30, the main car park is full and I have to park in the overflow car park half a mile away. 20 minutes later, that car park is also full. Those who don't qualify for the senior staff parking have to get there before 8 if they want a chance at getting a space - most of the business starts at 9. They're changing the rules next year so that anybody who qualifies for a company car must spend at least 4 days in the office to keep their car or the full car allowance, so parking is going to become impossible again.

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Bright_Arm8782@reddit

Senior staff shouldn't get special parking, if they want the best spaces they should get there first.

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TheDisapprovingBrit@reddit

It's touted as "company car parking" and "personal car parking" but I'm sure we can all read between the lines.

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beigemore@reddit

Cool, you don’t know your coworkers’ names. Living in the internet is fun.

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epitrochoidhappiness@reddit

100% remote here. We use pseudonyms and avatars, no cameras allowed, to give us the most internet fun.

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beigemore@reddit

Happiness

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Hotshot55@reddit

How'd you come to this conclusion? Even if you're 100% remote you're still going to interact with them in some way.

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beigemore@reddit

His post says this

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Hotshot55@reddit

He didn't say they were his direct co-workers. I work in an office with 5000 people, I know the names of maybe 20 people and only 6 of them are actually co-workers.

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Thoth74@reddit

They didn't say it was two people they work with only that in the entire office there are only two other people there. The office I used to work in (full remote now) has *hundreds* of people, most of whom I would never interact with. What is the point of learning everyone's names? That's what nameplates at the desk are for if it is important.

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beigemore@reddit

Sweet thanks

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Tom_Ford-8632@reddit

Do we really need HR departments? Ostensibly, they’re supposed to be there to protect employees from workplace harassment and to protect employers from liability issues, but in practice 99% of what they do is just annoy everyone by going on random power trips.

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Rentun@reddit

That's like 5% of what HR does. Most of their day to day is dealing with employee pay and benefits, and there's a ton of complexity and nuance there. They also own the onboarding and offboarding process, disciplinary processes, employee training, recruitment, job classification, regulatory compliance with labor laws, performance management, and about a dozen other things. Yes, we really need HR departments, otherwise, who would do all of that stuff?

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Tom_Ford-8632@reddit

In my experience, the staff accountants (ie. AR/AP people) usually do payroll. Onboarding and offboarding, recruitment, regulatory compliance - all this can be outsourced, and should be. Discipline and employee training is done by department managers. You'll never convince me that HR departments aren't a cancer on the workplace and do far more harm than good. In my 20 year career, I've had nothing but negative experiences with them, and the few small companies I've worked in that didn't have an HR department were some of the best jobs I've ever had. Without an HR department, work is much more laid back, enjoyable, and there's about 90% less drama and politics.

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Rentun@reddit

Literally anyone could say the same thing about IT. "Help desk, server, networking, storage, development can all be outsourced" So what? Someone still has to do it. And yes, smaller companies are more laid back, because they have less at stake and have inherently less risk. That's not unique to HR. IT is more laid back, as is accounting, sales, finance, marketing, operations and so on. If HR wasn't necessary, companies wouldn't have HR departments, believe me. HR departments are massively expensive and don't generate the business revenue. If they weren't vital, companies wouldn't continue paying for them. Remind you of any other department frequently discussed in this subreddit?

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Tom_Ford-8632@reddit

Sure, IT can be outsourced too, and often is. The major difference is that in-house IT isn't a complete cancer on company culture and morale. That is the primary reason that, in my opinion, HR should *always* be limited and 100% outsourced. I have too much experience with it for you to ever convince me otherwise.

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Rentun@reddit

Most people who have had to call a company IT department probably feel the same way. Literally everything you're saying about HR has been said about IT departments at various times. Just like IT, most of what HR does are just things people take for granted at a company. Have healthcare? Get your paycheck on time? Hired in a timely manner? Get paid time off accounted for correctly? That's all stuff that HR does for employees. Then there's a ton of other things that HR does for the business. Just like IT, you can outsource parts of HR, but once you get to a certain scale it becomes cost prohibitive, wasteful and difficult to implement.

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Tom_Ford-8632@reddit

Power hungry busybodies gravitate towards HR positions. It's always been this way, and always will be. Maybe you've never seen it, or maybe you're too biased to admit it, but it's true and well known and discussed. Literally no one likes HR.

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CaptainBrooksie@reddit

Don't get it twisted. HR is their to protect the business not the employees. They don't care about someone being sexually harassed or discriminated against, they're only concerned about the potential legal action that can come from such an event.

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cgimusic@reddit

I'm not convinced HR even does a particularly good job of protecting the business. At least ours seem more likely to cause a lawsuit than prevent one.

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CaptainBrooksie@reddit

Likely because the department is full of English literature graduates who would rather be instagram influencers.

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ChunkyBezel@reddit

In countries with decent employment laws, HR can best protect a company by protecting the employees.

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Capable_Agent9464@reddit

HR is not there to protect employees. They're the company's horsemen to carry out its dirty work. My friend works in HR but I've openly said, countless times, fuck HR!

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Viperonious@reddit

That's pretty much what HR should be.

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silverfish41@reddit

Not sure what country you are in. But if based in the UK you can apply for more flexible working, the company can only deny this if there is a sufficient business reason to not allow it.

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Turak64@reddit (OP)

It has been asked many times and keeps being denied.

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silverfish41@reddit

Did they give a valid business reason? Otherwise they can't deny the request. They also have to follow specific steps set out by the government [https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working](https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working)

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SysEngineeer@reddit

I only have to go in the office 2 times a week. I prob been in the office 2 times in the last 4 months.

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Less-Procedure-4104@reddit

I was moved out of the office in 2009 and I was there about three times in the next 15 years. Then all of sudden they need me in the office. I retired instead.

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TKInstinct@reddit

I mean is your manager on site? You could just try not showing up and see what happens if you hate it that much.

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epitrochoidhappiness@reddit

Manager is probably in another location. Anyway, maybe they are looking at badge swipes to gauge attendance.

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Turak64@reddit (OP)

Correct

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BuffaloRedshark@reddit

I go into the office and sit on meetings with people in other states. even for meetings with my team we're not all in the office on the same day and we have people in other states so we still have to have a conference call so the ones in the office stay at their desks so they can multi task easier. In office more than one day a week is a waste

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Bluetooth_Sandwich@reddit

>What is the point of me driving in, dealing with traffic, to sit practically on my own and speaking to nobody? For the sole purpose of maintaining the contract on the building lease...that's really about it. Someone more than likely is getting paid within the company to have said company continue paying the lease.

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tmontney@reddit

WFH isn't exclusive to this sub or IT in general. While I understand there's a lot of bad employers out there with toxic work environments, why does this sub continue to have these generic rants? This type of watercooler talk doesn't generate a resolution.

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whetherby@reddit

I assume they have to maintain a certain level of occupancy to write off the investment in rent or mortgage on the office space.

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Man-e-questions@reddit

Probably to make them feel better about paying exorbitant rent unnecessarily

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Bright_Arm8782@reddit

HR need to get back in their box, they should be facilitators, not enforcers, just like us. My favourite was when I was working at an MSP, one day per week in the office. Wednesday, when I had 7.5 hours of meetings scheduled.

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skorpiolt@reddit

They should enforce where it’s applicable, but they definitely seem way out of line here. It should be enough for a manager (policy dependent) to approve WFH days, why would it be HR breathing down anyone’s neck if it’s approved. I’d understand some C level huffing and puffing, but HR? Wtf….

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CaptainZhon@reddit

I took a job that I had to drive in 3x a week and wfh 2x, unless I have a big change that night. Anyway the amount of salary i'm making if they want me to drive in, I'll drive in.

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This_guy_works@reddit

The point of being in the office is to meet your co-workers and do some team building, bounce some ideas off of them, and handle anything physically that can't be done remotely. Get your face and name out there to anyone else not in your department. Look at the physical equipment, check cabling, do some rounding, label equipment. Get to know those two other people. Who are they, what do they do? Do they want to grab lunch? Maybe you would get along and can make plans outside of work? Maybe horse around in the office with them and make it fun. Sometimes leadership wants someone "on site" full time in case there is an outage or an issue where someone needs to respond right away in person. I work a job where I'm in the office, and I'd say about 90% of the time i'm just alone to myself and I wish I could work from home. But those few times I had to follow up in person because someone was frustrated or a system outage, the company was very thankful that I was around.

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awnawkareninah@reddit

There isn't one. The only time it made sense for me was when I was still managing devices (mailing them out, provisioning, etc.) Otherwise it was just straight up sunk cost. There was on site network maintenance but the main admins for that were remote, just Cisco admin guys across the country at our other office. I was smart hands more or less. I worked on display screens for "office announcements" and speakers to play bathroom music, but all of that "on site" work only existed because there was a site at all. Everyone else used the in person conference rooms to be on zoom meetings with people in other zoom rooms/remote people in our other offices. Almost every in person coworking task I had involved being on a zoom call. They could have just basically rented me an efficiency apartment with a gigabit line and put a computer locker in there and we'd have the same functionality.

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CAPICINC@reddit

There are zero lights on in our c-suite offices. Zero lights in our fiscal offices. there are maybe 10 employees in the whole office

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epitrochoidhappiness@reddit

But you're adding value through collaboration and synergy, right?

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crackerjam@reddit

At my last job the justification for coming into the office was "But the executives want to SEE you!" Because it will increase productivity? No. Because it helps team synergy or something? No. Literally just because Bob the CEO wants to look at us, ignoring that I've never seen Bob in my entire time working there anyway.

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Less-Procedure-4104@reddit

In a place a long time ago in a foreign world. I was sent for training at corporate head quarters. The ceo founders would walk around and talk to people. My first lunch at the office and they both sit down at our table as we were new recruits and asked us about our life , what we were going to be working on etc the nicest billionaires. The next time I saw a ceo was 20 years later and they had body guards and nobody was allowed near them let alone talk to them. Well when they were finally replaced the voice mail system had a viral message. The song ding dong the witch is dead. Unfortunately the witch was better than what came next. It has never been the same, rip.

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Humble-Plankton2217@reddit

But it's not pointless. The point is feeding the egos of power-tripping management. Do you not want your Betters to be able to experience the Joy of Lording It Over Us? So selfish.

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HerfDog58@reddit

I joined my previous employer after they'd closed the office for the pandemic lockdown. I eventually got permission to go to the office as needed to prep and ship hardware for new hires, at my discretion. I didn't mind, it was usually only 1 day/week, and I could do it when I wanted. But it was usually my least productive day, because invariably, one or more of the other half dozen people in the office that day would just wander into my cubicle to get help. No work ticket, no Teams chat, just show up. And then they'd go on and on about something not even related to their issue. HATED that. My current job is hybrid 4 onsite/1 WFH. But I'm OK with that arrangement because I'm making more money, have better benefits, get more holidays, and more PTO. Plus the office environment is pretty laid back and low-stress, and my commute is 2 miles each way. Even with being onsite 4 days, most meetings are on Slack and Teams, and I don't get anyone just walking into my office. I COULD be 100% remote and it wouldn't impact my work. But the current setup works OK for me.

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OpionatedEccentric@reddit

I'm currently interviewing for a full-time remote role, considering leaving the job I've been dedicated to for over 10 years, all because of similar frustrations.

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mscreations82@reddit

I have to go to the office 3 days a week and it sucks. My entire team and anyone I would communicate with is at other offices, usually overseas. My work setup at home is FAR nicer than the office with larger 4k screens, stand desk, and a more supportive desk chair. It costs money to park or money for the bus. The bus route changed and now my commute is longer because I have to walk 4 blocks to get to my building. It’s such a pain.

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itsmill3rtime@reddit

so go to a different company. you can’t expect a company to change their policies for you. if you aren’t happy then go somewhere else. don’t take take it and complain. be proactive to make yourself happy

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BigBobFro@reddit

Same here. Im legally not allowed (federal regulations per my company line of business) to talk to the other people in the office about anything work related. Stupid and petty is the nicest way to put it.

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a_shootin_star@reddit

> What is the point of me driving in, dealing with traffic, to sit practically on my own So you remember that you are just a cog in the machine, don't you dare have *ideas*!

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redwoodtree@reddit

You’re doing your part to prop up property values. Also synergy. Yay.

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rcp9ty@reddit

As a system admin I totally understand your perspective... TLDR: Don't be upset at HR or your Company its not their faults. I double majored in MIS and Business Administration so let me break this down for you from the point of view you're not seeing. So for HR whenever someone gets special treatment HR has to document everything their job is to keep the lawyers out. If you get special treatment it needs to be documented its annoying but it needs to be documented. Don't get upset at HR or your business its not their fault. What it comes down to is that you probably have a coworker that bitched about your extra days off not knowing the reason for them and wanted to go back to 100% work from home just like you do and was jealous of your extra days without knowing the reason. Secondly the management perspective is all about taxes. If no one is in a building its not "occupied" and the tax breaks are different. Occupied business space is 100% deductible as far as rent goes along with a bunch of other things. If the company owned the space then rented it out to the business but it was unoccupied then they get a 30% instead of 100% written off as a rental income loss. So if your business has a building that they were writing off the rent at 100% and each month that was $5,000 if no one is in the building that deduction goes from $5,000 to $1,500 or from a yearly perspective $60,000 vs $18,000 not to mention occupied space comes with being able to write off repairs and utilities.

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TheRealLambardi@reddit

Came in for a mandatory “week” to “work together”, had Covid soon after and this round ended up passing to my family and then added in pneumonia. APPRECIATE THE TAKE HOME WORK GIFT. For extra fun we had internationals fly in who also got sick and had to delay their travel to recover. Fun

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mini4x@reddit

You should not work and get paid for bereavement days no?

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Turak64@reddit (OP)

The only day I missed was the funeral and even that I booked as holiday. Won't be making that mistake again. All I wanted was some time at home so I could be around for end of life care and some other personal matters

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mini4x@reddit

Thats BS, We get 3 bereavement days, and can use Sick time for spousal / elder care. Sorry for your loss, but your company sounds bad.

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Turak64@reddit (OP)

In hindsight I wish I told them to stick it up their ass and just taken as much leave as I couid get away with. The thing is, my boss didn't care and their boss didn't care. It's just local HR being petty. So today I asked if I could see one of them to help with an issue... They're wfh today. Sums it up really.

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kmsaelens@reddit

*You guys get to work from home?*

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JazzlikeSurround6612@reddit

Yeah it seems pointless especially in your case where you are in basically a empty office. Myself I like going to the office to get out of the house and have a better working space but I'm a bit fan of letting people be flexible and do what's best for them. At the end if the work is getting done what's it matter?

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pppjurac@reddit

HR is not your friend. They main cause for existence to protect company from workers. Legal does that protection from outside people/companies and work hand in hand with HR. Get your extra WFH in written and signed form from manager, get that to HR and legal and be done. Got it ?

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britishotter@reddit

i only go in the office for those silly mandatory days if pizza is provided. not even kidding. Dominos or bust tbh. Have gone in the office about twice in the last few years :D

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bit0n@reddit

From what I see where I work every who is being forced in will be complaining to HR that you are not there. Leaving HR to decide if they say you are off for bereavement which they should not do or they force you in. I am not saying it is right but we get that here so often where one girl had to get her mother to driver her in twice a week as a broken ankle was not enough of a reason for why she was allowed to work from home 5 days a week.

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No-Road9495@reddit

You coming in makes the colored section on some if their PowerBI charts bigger. It makes them feel powerful is all. Thats my justification based on exoerience

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Igot1forya@reddit

At least the office is empty, the days I come in are complete write-offs for productivity due to a loud heavily disruptive environment where you hear every other person's phone calls and waller cooler talk.

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Delta31_Heavy@reddit

The point is they have a building they are paying for and want it occupied

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hkusp45css@reddit

This is a bad justification for RTO. It's the embodiment of the sunk cost fallacy.

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Son_Of_Moriarity@reddit

Bbbut what about the work culture?!

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Either-Cheesecake-81@reddit

My HR used to be up in everyone’s business about WFH, when, how much, etc., they changed the policy that WFH needed to be approved by the VP and HR informed of the WFH arrangement, they are no where in the approval process anymore.

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AllForTeags@reddit

HR isn't there to advocate for employees. They are there to protect the company.

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GuyWhoSaysYouManiac@reddit

OK, this particular situation is petty and pointless, but some time in the office can be valuable for most people. It helps connect with others and build relationships, and that ultimately makes people more productive in a team setting. Everyone needs to be careful what they wish for, and I for am glad that our upper management wants my team on site a couple of days a week. Because I can tell you what will happen shortly after we'd go fully remote: somebody will start asking why we have to pay expensive local people, when we could hire cheaper remote ones. Take the win of having a hybrid schedule, which is a good compromise.

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ARobertNotABob@reddit

Someone is looking at beans, not the employees.

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hashkent@reddit

Maybe the system the HR team use to login to monitor people coming into the office is somehow blocked at work by mistake.

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rdoloto@reddit

They point is they need to justify rent / cost of ownership and operations of said building..

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Lando_uk@reddit

At least you can save on toilet paper.

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