Microsoft Internal Documents - Permanent Work From Home

neural0

neural0

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This is something I would definitely like to do. From March to June I worked from home during the initial surge. Eventually management at the MSP I'm at decided it was no longer acceptable - back to the cubicle I went. During my time working from home I learned how much more happy, healthy and productive I could be. Instead of the 2 hour commute every day I suddenly had time to walk the dog around the neighborhood, prepare healthy meals, have a coffee out of an actual mug. After work I had more energy so I could spend that additional would-be commute time studying for more cert exams and preparing for the next day. Now I'm back to driving to an office to VPN/RDP in to servers/networks to do work I could be (more) easily doing from home. Not to mention my family being too scared to see me in person anymore out of fear of me getting them sick. I know I'm not alone in feeling all these ways either, I'm sure plenty of others feel the same way.
 
Wish I could - a lot of my work can be done on the computer now, so eventually I might be able to work from home occasionally, however there's still a lot of hands-on required.

The Wife, though, she's in the insurance agency and it sounds like her company is really loving the cost savings of working from home. There's currently no set date to return and when it does happen, it will likely be optional.
 
I’ve been remote for over 2 years. The company I work with (consulting for) has an indefinite date for when people who were in the office will return. Rumors going around that it may become permanent WFH for many of them.

We will likely see a large shift to WFH in many industries now that many companies were forced to try it out and for many it’s been highly successful.
 
i am still working from home.
there isnt even a whisper about going back into the office this year.
we have 1 member of our team thats allowed to go in and go into the labs to do physical work.
as long as i have an internet connection i could be anywhere on the planet...hell i could be on the moon and do this job.
yes the 7second commute from the bedroom to the kitchen table is quick, and the then 4 second commute to the couch is nice.
but at the same time i miss being able to walk into a coworkers office and put my finger on their screen and show them the exact lines that im talking about and then discuss them face to face. synergy is completely lost.

what i fear is that this will usher in a new age of remote only working that does away with office space entirely and in that same line most retailers
the new age of anti-social society
 
Yeah, if this pandemic accomplished anything it has been that accountants and CEO's all over the country and the world are suddenly wondering why they are spending so much money on buildings, when everyone can work so well from home.

I'm torn on this. I have been more productive from home than I expected before all of this started, but as long as the commute isnt too long, it's kind of nice to go into an office. It's nice to have a little mental separation between work and home.
 
sunruh said:
the new age of anti-social society
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I can see this happening and it will hurt people. I'm kind of in this boat. I'm not the most social person but after working from home since 2012 it really did a number on me mentally. Many people who are pretty social people it will be very difficult for them. My wife and sister were done with WFH after about a week. they couldn't deal with no being in a place working and talking in person with people.

separation will be a huge issue, especially people with children. I don't have kids but both of us working for home for a bit was not all that fun at times.

the work place socialism outside of the office will go away I suspect which is another place a lot of people get the social fix. Just so easy to say we are going out after work vs planning it and everyone driving to a place. It will probably cut back a lot of business for restaurants and bars.
 
Our company shut down a few offices for a few of our cities. Or city is still up as company owns the property at this point and probably not worth selling at this point. Think we have a few jobs that require work in the office but for rest of us, no hint I'm going back in. It has been great especially when having kids who have half days at school or zoom days.

For self motivated people it's great, we have some unproductive and less experienced types and it's worse as far as productivity for them.
 
Bigbacon said:
I can see this happening and it will hurt people. I'm kind of in this boat. I'm not the most social person but after working from home since 2012 it really did a number on me mentally. Many people who are pretty social people it will be very difficult for them. My wife and sister were done with WFH after about a week. they couldn't deal with no being in a place working and talking in person with people.

separation will be a huge issue, especially people with children. I don't have kids but both of us working for home for a bit was not all that fun at times.

the work place socialism outside of the office will go away I suspect which is another place a lot of people get the social fix. Just so easy to say we are going out after work vs planning it and everyone driving to a place. It will probably cut back a lot of business for restaurants and bars.
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I can't imagine relying on work for social interaction.

Not that there is anything wrong with the people I work with. It's just that mixing work and play has never been my way (sounding like Dr. Seuss was unintentional)

I go in to work every day with a "They are paying me to get a job done, not to make friends" attitude, and have kept my social and work circles completely separate. The lines are never blurred. I'll make a little garbage chit chat to not come across as a total sociopath, but if I am honest I really couldn't care less about any of their weekends or kids soccer games. In my 20 years in the work force, I have never socialized with anyone I have worked with outside of work. I've gone to work events (like Christmas parties) to make a polite appearance, but retire early to get the hell out of there.

I tend to view all the people I work with as "fellow productivity robots".

Mixing work and social life just has too many landmines. Too messy.

My take is that personal life can be filled with all sorts of drama. Political disagreements, relationship drama, you name it. Work is where your livelihood comes from. You never want to jeopardize that. So at work you wear a mask. Keep things sterile. Keep people at arm's length. Never show your true self. Be polite, professional, exchange pleasantries if you have to, but in the end you are there to do work.
Treat it like you are constantly on trial. Carefully weigh every word you say like it can and will be used against you.

It is not the place to relax and socialize.

I'm not necessarily opposed to people making friends at work, but it ought to be done with great caution.

Dating at work always has been and always will be a MAJOR faux pas.
 
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No chance WFH will be permanent for me. My bank was cracking down on telecommuters immediately before the outbreak and were caught with their pants down as a result of the downscaling efforts. They went as far as to eliminate full-time telecommuter positions in October 2019 and reopened those jobs as in-person near our hub offices. There's a clear stigma about telecommuting among our middle and upper management who believe it breeds laziness.

Before the outbreak I would telecommute twice a week, but we've been full-time WFH since March.
 
My company switched from on site 1 day a week to 1 day every other week.

If/when I look for a new job, WFH is required -- I'm never going into an office 5 days a week again. They could offer 2x what I make now and I wouldn't go in.

Nothing to do with the pandemic, though that doesn't help!
 
WFH has become indefinitely permanent for me. Worksite is being treated like it's a radioactive wasteland and only people approved by C level execs can even access.
I absolutely hate this arrangement. The schools have managed covid with very little issue here with the chaos that kids include. Not sure why my company cannot formulate a plan with the amount of resources it has versus the public schools.

no one can retreive their personal belongings. even those who have left the company voluntarily or involutarily.
 
Insomniator said:
My company switched from on site 1 day a week to 1 day every other week.

If/when I look for a new job, WFH is required -- I'm never going into an office 5 days a week again. They could offer 2x what I make now and I wouldn't go in.

Nothing to do with the pandemic, though that doesn't help!
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this is me. I will preface this that I am VERY under paid for my job/experience level and would love to get a new job that will immediately pay me 35%+ more but my current job has let me WFH since 2012, they are super flexible about everything as long as you get work done and are a good employee. I'm hoping this opens up A LOT more job opportunities for me in the future because before covid, finding a 100% WFH job was extremely difficult. No one wanted WFH employees.

quality of life is just so much better with WFH. Commuting is the killer of souls, especially once you get above the 30min mark each way. being able to get chores done throughout the day and week, during the work day, is awesome. Being able to go somewhere else and work is awesome. If it wasn't for my wife's job we would spend summers working from my parent's lake house if we could. I mean you almost don't need personal time, go where you want to 'vacation' work 5 or 6 hours, go have fun, repeat until you want to go home.
 
sc5mu93 said:
WFH has become indefinitely permanent for me. Worksite is being treated like it's a radioactive wasteland and only people approved by C level execs can even access.
I absolutely hate this arrangement. The schools have managed covid with very little issue here with the chaos that kids include. Not sure why my company cannot formulate a plan with the amount of resources it has versus the public schools.

no one can retreive their personal belongings. even those who have left the company voluntarily or involutarily.
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That is just silly... although public schools have to deal with a lot more stuff as soon as anyone gets covid. Parents are relentless as complaining to anyone and everyone when it happens. one of the schools my wife works at is closed for 14 days after 10 staff members test positive. Parents went ballistic for every reason imaginable.
 
sc5mu93 said:
WFH has become indefinitely permanent for me. Worksite is being treated like it's a radioactive wasteland and only people approved by C level execs can even access.
I absolutely hate this arrangement. The schools have managed covid with very little issue here with the chaos that kids include. Not sure why my company cannot formulate a plan with the amount of resources it has versus the public schools.

no one can retreive their personal belongings. even those who have left the company voluntarily or involutarily.
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Jeez.

I mean, I am all in favor of taking precautions, and think we should in general be doing more, but that above is bit nuts. I haven't heard of that approach taken anywhere else.

At my work (medium sized startup in the medical device industry) we have a manufacturing site and an office. (yes it's unusual for a company our size to have more than one site, but they are both pretty small and it just kind of wound up that way based on how the company was founded)

Back in February our CEO was out ahead of the curve in identifying what was to come. He and the executive team came up with a business continuity plan which involves everyone who doesn't absolutely have to be in the office to accomplish their duties work from home.

This has meant all office support type work is conducted from home now. Things that require people in the office (like manufacturing/inspection/test or development lab work) continue on site, but they have completely reconfigured the offices (I don't even have a desk at work anymore) to allow those who absolutely have to be there, to spread out more to adequately social distance. They have done some work to the air handling systems as well in order to better flow the air and filter out as much as possible. Masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, etc. is all also required, and everyone who comes on site has to take their temperature every day before coming in, and wear a mask the entire time they are on site.

They leave it up to the individual employees who needs to be on site for their work, but there is an electronic system in which you have to reserve a slot if you want to go on site in advance, to ensure that not too many people are on site at any given time.

All this as resulted in that I have been working from home since late February. I have gone in a handful of times (maybe 5 or 6) for small tasks I could not do from home, but that's it.
 
My new position requires on site due to having to work on the onsite hardware as well as needing that direct to the RDC connection for what I'm doing.
Before, I was WFH.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm torn on this. I have been more productive from home than I expected before all of this started, but as long as the commute isnt too long, it's kind of nice to go into an office. It's nice to have a little mental separation between work and home.
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This for me. My commute wasn't very long and quite enjoyable at times since my bus takes a scenic route over a bridge into downtown Montreal. That seperation is also long gone for me since WFH as I often find myself opening up my laptop at 9 and 10 at night...


Bigbacon said:
I can see this happening and it will hurt people. I'm kind of in this boat. I'm not the most social person but after working from home since 2012 it really did a number on me mentally. Many people who are pretty social people it will be very difficult for them. My wife and sister were done with WFH after about a week. they couldn't deal with no being in a place working and talking in person with people.
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I agree with this as well. I find I'm more easily annoyed by my coworkers than compared to when I would see them in person. I don't know why.
 
Bigbacon said:
this is me. I will preface this that I am VERY under paid for my job/experience level and would love to get a new job that will immediately pay me 35%+ more but my current job has let me WFH since 2012, they are super flexible about everything as long as you get work done and are a good employee. I'm hoping this opens up A LOT more job opportunities for me in the future because before covid, finding a 100% WFH job was extremely difficult. No one wanted WFH employees.

quality of life is just so much better with WFH. Commuting is the killer of souls, especially once you get above the 30min mark each way. being able to get chores done throughout the day and week, during the work day, is awesome. Being able to go somewhere else and work is awesome. If it wasn't for my wife's job we would spend summers working from my parent's lake house if we could. I mean you almost don't need personal time, go where you want to 'vacation' work 5 or 6 hours, go have fun, repeat until you want to go home.
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I think it is a mixed blessing.

I love not commuting, but on the flipside after a leaving a job with the worst commute of my life (1.5 hours) last year, I now have the best commute of my life. Just 5 miles / 15 minutes down the road.

The negatives of working from home are that you are always at work. It can be difficult to switch off and relax.

I'm not one of those crazy extreme extroverts who crave the social interactions, so that's not a factor for me. It's simply the convenience of not having to commute or get dressed for work vs. the ability to have a mental separation from work while at home that is the tradeoff for me.

I'm not sure which I prefer.
 
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Lot of people at the company I contract for that are shifting to permanent WFH, after the trial run of Covid showed that it's entirely possible and doesn't impact productivity for most.

I won't be, merely because I can't turn screwdrivers and use pliers to fix printers and computers at a variety of sites from my home office. :)
 
SPARTAN VI said:
No chance WFH will be permanent for me. My bank was cracking down on telecommuters immediately before the outbreak and were caught with their pants down as a result of the downscaling efforts. They went as far as to eliminate full-time telecommuter positions in October 2019 and reopened those jobs as in-person near our hub offices. There's a clear stigma about telecommuting among our middle and upper management who believe it breeds laziness.

Before the outbreak I would telecommute twice a week, but we've been full-time WFH since March.
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yes my company went so far as to "you are either in the office 5 days a week, or you move so you can be, or you look for another job"
they were totally against wfh
now its nothing but wfh
one of my coworkers died back in june (non-covid) and i got to see my old teammates...one of them joked about working 50hrs a week now from home.
another asked how they were getting away with only 50 as they were working over 60.
what ceo doesnt want people working 50% overtime for free?
some jobs demand in person/onsite work. others dont.
 
I am fortunate enough to have a hands-on job (mix of bench science and onsite engineering). We were allowed back into lab mid-June and my mental health/happiness shot through the roof, even though I had been pretty successful about doing meaningful work during the mandatory WFH period. WFH has never worked for me, even as a grad student, I'd go into our office on campus to write my thesis. I need the separation of work and not-work (and with it the discipline that I do work when I'm at work rather than everything bleeding into one another), and the broader social interactions, even if many of them are superficial, keep me sane. It also doesn't hurt that I built up my exercise routine into my daily commute, and an overall rhythm to my life. It wouldn't be bad to WFH every once in a while, although that'd mean finding a coffee shop/library/etc that provides a physical separation from my home.

I see a painting of extremes in terms of introversion and extroversion above. A more broad look at the space shows how terrible the whole MTBI thing is in terms of painting us as one or the other, when it's conditional for the masses. Obviously there's exceptions and extremes of the bell curve. You'd assume I was a massive extrovert based on my interactions at work, but then I spend the next 14 hours basically with myself in solitary pursuits.

My former/to-be roommate (I'm moving towns in a couple weeks for a new job) does remote work, did so beforehand, and will continue to do so. It largely works for him, although I know he struggles mightily with the lack of social interactions nowadays after work.
 
Good. I hope more companies follow suit. I doubt you can completely remove it but lots of jobs don't really need to be in the office for.
I've been WFH for years now as a developer putting in my 40 hours while working for 25-30 of them.
 
The positive side of all this increased WFH business is housing.

If we enter a period where you can work from anywhere you have internet, many can and will combine the best of big city salaries, with more suburban and urban real estate costs.

Provided they can get decent internet, of course.
 
My role is mostly work from home with 1-2 days in the office a week as I see fit. Really if work consolidated and made it so the people that need to be in the office had actual offices as opposed to cubical farms I'd be in the office more. The ability to focus and not have home based interruptions to work is TOO nice to give up.
 
sc5mu93 said:
I absolutely hate this arrangement. The schools have managed covid with very little issue here with the chaos that kids include. Not sure why my company cannot formulate a plan with the amount of resources it has versus the public schools.
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It's very simple, teachers are seen as super cheap daycare paid for by the government and are largely disposable in the eyes of the public. Schools largely are ok because kids are more resilient so again worth the risk, if someone gets sick how much of a financial hit is it? It isnt.

I'm a teacher but I work at a college so they are more than happy to keep me working at home remotely, in fact they are even planning the spring semester being at home which is fine by me as I do asynchronous stuff so can literally just import everything and then the only work load I have is grading assignments
 
I've worked from home for 10 years. I have no plans to change this, neither does my company, and I would very likely turn down any job offer that stipulated a set amount of time in an office environment. Life is too short to waste time on commuting.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The positive side of all this increased WFH business is housing.

If we enter a period where you can work from anywhere you have internet, many can and will combine the best of big city salaries, with more suburban and urban real estate costs.

Provided they can get decent internet, of course.
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A number of them around here are moving to permanent work at home but they say they arent going to pay the SF bay area inflated salaries. So people are definitely moving to cheaper parts of the country but they dont get the bigger salaries
 
sfsuphysics said:
It's very simple, teachers are seen as super cheap daycare paid for by the government and are largely disposable in the eyes of the public. Schools largely are ok because kids are more resilient so again worth the risk, if someone gets sick how much of a financial hit is it? It isnt.

I'm a teacher but I work at a college so they are more than happy to keep me working at home remotely, in fact they are even planning the spring semester being at home which is fine by me as I do asynchronous stuff so can literally just import everything and then the only work load I have is grading assignments
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This is not what I have found with my local public school district. Policies and procedures have been put in place to keep administrators/teachers/staff and kids safe. There has been transparency in reporting positive COVID cases and suspected COVID cases. I think they are doing a remarkable job. I didn't expect this result. I expected schools in my area to shut down two weeks into the new school year - but I think my local public school district has done a great job.

I find it sad that my company with an order of magnitude more resources cant or wont figure out how to allow people into a worksite to retrieve personal belongings. I think it is more of a WONT than a CANT which is really insulting.
 
sc5mu93 said:
I find it sad that my company with an order of magnitude more resources cant or wont figure out how to allow people into a worksite to retrieve personal belongings. I think it is more of a WONT than a CANT which is really insulting.
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WHY would you if you can get 25 to 50% increase in hours worked for FREE?
 
I’d been primarily work from home for about a year before all this started and after a little adjustment period grew to really like it, for a lot of the reasons already mentioned. I get to spend time randomly throughout the day with my family, and I’m not sitting in the car for 3-4 hours each day.

we have an office connected to a Datacenter, and I occasionally have to go in to do maintenance or repairs that can’t be done remotely, but it was minimal staffing even before the outbreak. It’s also much closer for me than my old job, only a 10-15 minute drive, even in heavy traffic.

I love it. I do occasionally miss the “office interaction” of meaningless chit chat, and a few people at my old job I really enjoyed working with, but the tradeoffs have been a real life changer for me. WFH is a requirement for anything I look for in the future.
 
This isn't surprising, many companies found that their office workers at home were just as productive as they were from the office all while seeing a massive decrease in rent and office expenses. Why wouldn't they go for this?
 
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sunruh said:
WHY would you if you can get 25 to 50% increase in hours worked for FREE?
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I'm just talking about retrieving my personal shit on my desk from February. I can't even do THAT. People who have quit or been laid off (and moved) still cant get their shit. It is draconian and ridiculous.
 
sc5mu93 said:
I'm just talking about retrieving my personal shit on my desk from February. I can't even do THAT. People who have quit or been laid off (and moved) still cant get their shit. It is draconian and ridiculous.
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Ha, I half agree and disagree. The disagree comes from seeing people do dumb things, like removing their masks to sneeze out in front of them...

We're allowing limited access on campus, provided you pass several simple safety checks. Need to do a self-screener, take a temperature check, then sign in and out with security with where you're going. There's sanitizer every 3 steps you take and you obviously must be masked. You're very strongly advised to stay the fuck away if you don't feel utterly pristine. Everything is logged and is reported back to the state.
 
I doubt this will last. People will start to get more comfortable and start slacking off and eventually start taking advantage of the freedom. It will be even worse with the younger generations. They already lazy as hell. While I would love to work from home it wouldn't work for me. Too many damn distractions for me to be productive.
 
socK said:
Ha, I half agree and disagree. The disagree comes from seeing people do dumb things, like removing their masks to sneeze out in front of them...

We're allowing limited access on campus, provided you pass several simple safety checks. Need to do a self-screener, take a temperature check, then sign in and out with security with where you're going. There's sanitizer every 3 steps you take and you obviously must be masked. You're very strongly advised to stay the fuck away if you don't feel utterly pristine. Everything is logged and is reported back to the state.
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and I could TOTALLY agree with this procedure. It is reasonable. Just outright "NO, well, because covid", is not reasonable. I'm just in an "I hate everyone mood" today. I have no WFH space in my house. I am literally working out of my closet on a card table since Feb because it is the quietest place in my home. I bought a house 5 minutes from the worksite when it opened, because I anticipated going in to the office everyday (which I did). I do not have a home office. I really sick of working out of my closet, when with reasonable procedures/policies, I could easily and happily follow and return to the office.
 
vegeta535 said:
I doubt this will last. People will start to get more comfortable and start slacking off and eventually start taking advantage of the freedom. It will be even worse with the younger generations. They already lazy as hell. While I would love to work from home it wouldn't work for me. Too many damn distractions for me to be productive.
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I’m actually concerned the opposite will happen - people will get used to being able to work from anywhere, and the line between business and personal will get blurred to the point where it’s normal for someone to be working from their beach vacation while the kids are off having fun, or whatever. I see it in a lot of the “old guard” at companies. Once they got used to being able to reply to emails from their blackberries, it went from “staying late at the office and ignoring my family” to “going home and ignoring my family”.

I’ve found myself continually fighting work creep, and I have a dedicated space at home where I work so I’m not always in front of it. But some people just work all the time, and that isn’t healthy (or good for their families, imo).
 
deruberhanyok said:
I’m actually concerned the opposite will happen - people will get used to being able to work from anywhere, and the line between business and personal will get blurred to the point where it’s normal for someone to be working from their beach vacation while the kids are off having fun, or whatever. I see it in a lot of the “old guard” at companies. Once they got used to being able to reply to emails from their blackberries, it went from “staying late at the office and ignoring my family” to “going home and ignoring my family”.

I’ve found myself continually fighting work creep, and I have a dedicated space at home where I work so I’m not always in front of it. But some people just work all the time, and that isn’t healthy (or good for their families, imo).
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This is interesting, and I definitely see the lines blurring more.

It cuts both ways. I've had quiet days where I was caught up, no meetings, and I went out for a run. Other days, I've hammered away on shit far later than I ever would have because there was never that disconnect moment where I left the office.
 
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