My favorite quote:
While employees in the office might kill time messaging friends or flipping through TikTok, remote workers take advantage of being far from the watchful gaze of bosses to chip away at personal to-do lists or to goof off.
Nearly half of remote workers multitask on work calls or complete household chores like unloading the dishwasher or doing a load of laundry, according to the SurveyMonkey poll of 3,117 full-time workers in the U.S.
Oh noes, people actually doing things that are useful for their families instead of even more computer time.
It’s insane that this is even considered strange or surprising. When I work from home, I take longer lunch breaks and I often stop working earlier, but I’m still three times as productive compared to sitting in an office.
At home, I actually get focused time to do something and think. At the office, this is extreamly difficult with all the distractions and noise constantly interrupting my train of thought.
A good boss doesn’t give a shit about whether the workers do other things during work time, as long as the work is done satisfactorily.
At my last office job, years ago when I was young and lived with my parents and had very few financial obligations, I would always ask to clock out and leave whenever I ran out of work to do for the day. It was always busy mornings and slow afternoons. My boss thought I was insane for not wanting to get paid to sit there and fuck around on Facebook (her exact words.) But to me it was worth losing $30-60 to gain back 3-6 hours of my personal life every week.
The boss and most co-workers were great, and the work wasn’t even bad when it was busy, but just physically being present there was soul-crushing.
Most bosses: hmm but if you worked instead of doing small important things for your family you could four double your productivity instead of only triple it!
Most bosses equate having fun with not working and so not having fun with being productive. However, most workers are in a twilight state of not having fun and not being productive.
twilight state of not having fun and not being productive.
Stop putting me on blast, man
The first hour in the office was spent staring at the screen wiggling the mouse from time to time when the screen saver came on because too tired from commuting every day. But, it was at the office so it was productive staring I guess.
Haha it’s so ridiculous that these articles never take into consideration that people in the office don’t have a lot of productive time.
I had the same, I would have a somewhat easy first hour, then spend 2 to 3 hours really focusing and then I’d basically be done for the day and would spend some time idling after lunch until I deemed it was an appropriate time to leave and “work some more from home”.
My best year billability wise was the first year of the covid lockdowns, I managed to generate something like 25% more just because of being able to work from home and cutting back on the travel time to customers and being able to multi-task occasionally when I had a quiet day for a customer. I’m glad I live in the Netherlands, hybrid/remote working seems like it’ll remain over here at least.
And they they go on about the free flow of ideas, innovations and cooperation. Please, we were all sitting there with headphones trying to isolate ourselves to get anything done because some manager would always be on a loud phone call and using a meeting space to work was forbidden.
Driving to customers or flying to the other side of the world for a meeting was such a big time sink.
It also reminds me of the story of Rotterdam harbour where they just couldn’t find any people anymore. Turns out that the cost of commuting was so high, people made more money doing lower paid work closer to home.
Turns out that the cost of commuting was so high, people made more money doing lower paid work closer to home.
This is true for a lot of people everywhere. It’s often ridiculous the amount of time and money lost from commutes that gets forgotten about.
For me commuting outside the city costs at least an hour of time every day, and $1+/hour in fuel weekly that I don’t get paid. For me WFH is like a $1.50+/hr raise that is far more convenient and stress reducing than a better paying job.
Ah the bullshit justifications of open office plans. If I want free communication with my coworkers I’ll go communicate with them. If I need to be left alone to focus let me
Starring in your own office movie.
Office Space is a documentary
Gotta love how the articles frames it. While at work people “kill time” with tik tok but at home they “goof off” folding laundry
Corpo propaganda and normies larp it.
I feel like they’re just trying to use variety in their wording and either configuration would have upset you
I can tell you it wouldn’t… We usually do not have multiple words because they are completely and 100% interchangeable.
It is the exact same message manipulation when a cop outright murders someone the headline often says something super tangential like “Perp lost life in altercation with police”… words matter and you’d expect journalist to know this
I still think it’s overly cynical and not likely to be a conspiracy in this case but I do agree that it’s a general concern, highlighted especially now with the genocide in Gaza, so I don’t think you’re wrong to feel that way. I’m still choosing to be charitable in this case, however.
I still think it’s overly cynical
Definitely could be… I know this of myself and I have been working on it
I think many of us feel that way, given how the world has evolved in my adult life I don’t blame anyone.
And in the office there are people who literally hang out at the coffee machine for 30-60 minutes at a time, talking to everyone who comes by under the guise of “networking”.
The media gotta stop reporting on the laundry like it’s the equivalent of stealing from the company.
It’d be cool if the media did a piece about how companies are stealing the excess labor of their employees. It will never happen though because “the media” also steals the excess labor from it’s employees.
Maybe the solution to return-to-work is manufacturing a bunch of fake news about remote workers being significantly less likely to unionize and more likely to take an ass pounding from corporate overlords?
We have people here working maximum 1 hour per day, in the home office they can at least not stop others from working.
I worked with people who could easily spend 30 minutes scrolling social media while pooping.
Jokes on you, I shop and shower while at the office as well.
Exactly this. The office doesn’t magically make people work undistracted all day for that sweet sweet 110% productivity.
Your office has a shower?
Yes. People who go to the office by bicycle can take a shower, for example.
That’s awesome!
Yes. It gets used by people commuting long distances by bike and people who work out during lunch, or for anyone who needs to shower for other unknown reasons.
You think that’s bad, wait until you hear about the shareholders and landlords.
They dont even have to pretend to work to get paid.
There is a class difference in there though… Some people own while others slave
Sounds like they take micro breaks, which is not only healthy, but can help with productivity.
Is anyone complaining about this?
Billionaires whose commercial real estate investments are tanking
Those refis gonna have to happen but fed lowered the interest rates for them… These clowns never lose as we are always there to bail them with policy or straight hand outs of cash lol
Managera who have nothing better to do
If anything, one should absolutely take care of mundane tasks with downtime between productive tasks. If their workflow allows for short breaks, it doesn’t make a difference to the employer if nothing is done or an unrelated task is done.
They pay people to complete tasks for their corporation. They don’t own the worker’s bodies or minds due to the virtue of providing a paycheck.
This concept of whole ownership of people really is baked into US social consciousness.
I can even imagine that some household chores can be done while “actively” working, like when you’re in a call and just listening to the other parties.
Yeah the US is a sick country. They think money and power is the meaning of life. And it’s very obviously not.
Maternity leave policy is all you need to know about the nature of the regime.
SAVAGE
My coworkers recounting the oh so cute exploits of their oh so cute grandchildren in excruciating detail is very productive, I’m sure. Definitely makes the extra long commute worthwhile for me.
Sometimes office workers rinse the coffee pot 😤
Rinse? With the modern machines it’s an elaborate cleaning out the grounds or capsules, refilling water, carefully taking the tray with spills to the sink to empty and maybe checking milk too.
Lol username so apt
In a lot of meetings I’m expected to be in I mostly just listen and jump in to answer specific questions. When working from home I like to be active with chores during the meetings, I’ll just take them on my phone. Sometimes I do motorcycle maintenance! It helps me concentrate much better than watching talking heads.
I can admit I delay work more from home than I did when I was at the office. I do about the same amount overall I just don’t get around to it as quickly.
But the company I’m with would also have to pay me 20-30% more to go into the office as I have better offers for that already and I’d still probably just hop to another company that lets me work from home for a similar salary.
I do about the same amount overall I just don’t get around to it as quickly.
That’s the important part. Who gives a fuck when and how you finish your work, as long as you do. We can only be productive for so many hours a day anyway.
Production went up 15% in my department by going from 2 days in office to fully remote. Some employees still have to go to the office for disciplinary reasons, but that’s a manager’s job to make it happen, if managers are too dumb to realize some employees aren’t working then it’s a management issue, not a remote work issue.
if managers are too dumb to realize some employees aren’t working then it’s a management issue
Well Amazon management made it a slave issue now lol
I love the day ending and my chores already being done. I log out and it’s like I’m completely done and can go fuck off somewhere.
You pay me a salary to solve problems, not to warm a chair. Make me hourly if you want that. My rate is quite steep, I assure you.
