35% of the Workforce are still working from home‼️

I have been in the office 4 days a week and remote the 5th day - comes with my position. We are currently looking at NOT coming back into the office at all and giving up our office space.

A number of my clients have told their people that they can continue to work from home indefinitely -- there are no plans to reopen offices.

I WISH i could find a work from home job that 1) pays more than 12 dollars a hour 2) only allowed to work from home after you've been working for the company for years and years 3) isn't a call center job or a commission only sales job 4) a legit job at a legit well known company NOT at some unheard of or sketchy little known company...

R3, aren’t all office jobs work from home now? It’s not just call centers.

I telecommute mostly, and go into the office once or twice a week.

Yes. I'm in Canada and my job doesn't require me to meet clients or travel. I wouldn't be surprised if my team is expected to work from home until March when management decides what to do next. No complaints, my frau boss is a massive cunt. I do miss my lesbian coworker, she keeps me sane

UK here. I went back to the office at the beginning of September, but we're now consulting across the company about making working from home a permanent option for about 60% of job roles. For my particular job, it looks like it will be possible for me to work 3 days per week from home.

It took me a while to get used to it, but now I've got my home office sorted out (it's the guest bedroom, shhh) I find I prefer it to my office office. OH often works strange hours, and I get to see more of him if I'm working from home. Plus I have the company of the dogs. All in all, it makes me a happy little productivity unit.

People still have jobs? In this economy?

Any source for that percentage? Also how much of the workforce are “office jobs”? Because almost everyone I know that has an office job is still WFH. So that 35% seems like it should be higher.

OP works 0 out of 8 hours when working from home? Browser history shows only DL and PornHub.

By and large homosexuals are better educated and more intelligent than straights so they have the sort of job that can be done remotely. So our answers will be skewed.

I have been working remotely since March and will probably continue this for the foreseeable future. I am a federal employee and in high risk category for COVID-19. Most government departments are being very cautious about much of the staff returning to offices; they definitely don't want the liability.

We had the capabilities to have much of the workforce work from home, and now are really getting advanced with all of our virtual capabilities.

I miss all the little things about working in an office. The water cooler chitchat, hearing a funny joke in the hallway, a coworker I haven't seen since forever popping in to say hi. No way is an old coworker going to pop into my home. Nothing fun or random is going to happen at home. If I had a question, I could just ask my officemate. What I miss most of all though are real face-to-face meetings, not remote meetings where people don't realize they are muted, or talk over each other.

I also miss my home being truly home, a respite from work, something to look forward to. ("I can finally go home!") Work and home blend together, and it's never-ending.

Pre-COVID, my organization used to be against work-from-home, but now they have done a complete 180 and are gung-ho for it. I really hope they grasp that a lot of us want to return to the office, at least part of the time. I might look for a new job if I'm stuck at home forever.

One week in the office, one at home.

It's six of one, half dozen of the other. At home, I may break excessively to do little shit like start laundry, bit in the office, I have to leave my desk periodically because I can't stand the other stupid, fat whore with whom I share an office.

R4... all i know is that 99% of the jobs on flexjobs for instance are either call center or sales commission only jobs from little known companies or IT tech jobs and other jobs i'm not qualified for...

OP is an obvious troll. 0 out of 8 hours? You need to be fired. It has nothing to do with working from home. You’re lazy (and lying) fuck.

People have worked from home before the pandemic with success.

I've been working from home since March, and hope to never spend another day in the office. But then, I'm retiring in just a few months, so that's very possible.

Well, OP, if you "work 0 out of 8 hours at home" you're either a troll or the you're the reason those of us who are productive working from home are gonna be forced back into the office.

My employer has 30 offices nationwide and just announced the permanent closure of the NYC office. It's just the first, I'm sure that more permanent closures will follow next year.

I’m in an office of four and we each get a week a month working from home. Although that can get taken away at their whim. We’ve only been working from home in this way for a few months. Personally I don’t think any of us “need” to be in the office but they want some sort of visibility.

I have been working from home since March and I have been reliably 200-300 percent more productive without the office distractions, and even with all the gratuitous Zoom meetings.

A friend of mine works in insurance and has been working from home for the last seven months. It’s been working so well for everyone, that they just got word that the company is giving up the physical office and they’ll all be working from home permanently, even after COVID-19 is a thing in the past. I imagine there’ll be a huge downturn in commercial real estate over the course of the next year.

Yeah, offices have largely outgrown their usefulness. We should never go back to the brain dead, everyone stuck in cubicles 8, 9, 10 hours a day pretending to be "productive" doing nonsense and busy work.

American fattards die the most per 100k population from COVID-19, compared to other developed countries. Better for them to self-isolate and go down the shitter economically and socially. SAD!!

I've been working from home since March and I love it. And I'll never go back to the office.

My company is all WFH from the foreseeable future and I love it. The office is open in case someone has technical issues, but there's only a small handful of people on site.

Large digital agency in NYC. WFH since March. No business plans to reopen the office until (possibly) Summer of next year. They planned on January, but CV case increase made them push the date back...

R13, I felt exactly like you when I started working from home 20 years ago. It took me a few months to get over it. Now I can't imagine ever going back to an office.

In the position I'm in, I worked from home even before all this, but now everyone is (I work in insurance). As R26 noted, our office is "open" but they have gone to leasing 12 floors (of a 14 story building) to 4.

[quote]I used to work 5 out of 8 hours when I was at the office.

If that's all you worked then you are a lazy grifter and stealing from your employer OP. I'll bet you make sure other people take the blame for your mistakes and you know how to expertly kiss the right asses so nobody suspects anything is amiss too. I loathe people like you because I'm the one who has to pick up your workload and fix your numerous mistakes. You should be fired.

I'm an introvert, so I tend to like this new arrangement. Still in the office 2 or 3 days a week, and that's 2 or 3 days too much for me. But I do think of people like r13. Maybe some kind of compromise, but I don't know what. I know I'd be happy to only ever go into an office to do exactly what needs to be done there, and then get the hell out. The whole, be here, bored and trapped, 8 or 9 hours a day, is what I hate.

I am still working from home, no plans to bring us back into the office right now. We have some jobs that can't work from home and they have been going in throughout the pandemic, but those of us who can work remotely will be doing so into 2021.

Or that's the only amount that really needs to be done r30. I know corporations and our whole culture are built around this 8 hours a day of "productivity" (at least 8 hours), but it's largely bullshit and only retained by OCD types, who unfortunately tend to be the ones to set the rules. The whole thing's very neurotic and should be ended. Pretty much every meeting is a waste of time for most of the people dragged into them.

In the office 1-2 days a week, working from home 3-4 days. I'm an engineer so by necessity I'm working with parts hands-on in a lab or with manufacturing equipment or on the manufacturing floor. I miss going into the office, my job is much harder by not having equipment and parts at hand, not being able to whiteboard impulsively with coworkers. Being remote, everyone feels the need to formally schedule collaboration sessions. Rather than having them happen organically and take 5 minutes and slip them in between tasks and have people float in and out, people set up 1/2 hour meetings and delay them until everyone is formally available. My schedule is 70% meetings which doesn't leave time to do actual work. So now work hours are for meetings and actual work is done in the evenings. I'm burned out after months of this.

Still at home full time. There’s no point me going back. I do my job and log off. I’m not into chitchat or gossip. And meetings are a waste of time.

Our office is opened but still restricted to 25% capacity and strictly voluntary. The ones going in are those who don’t have a great WFH set up, kids at home, etc.

I am more productive at home than at the office. I feel like I am working more but don’t feel stressed about it.

I am in regular contact with my team and others in the company so I don’t feel cut off or isolated. In the office there could be whole days where I do not speak to anyone. Not antisocial, just busy.

I think it’s healthier for me to be home. I get enough sleep, eat healthier than ever, and get at least a half hour of fresh air, usually an hour with two 30-minute walks, or one long one, every day.

R13 = Ginny from Billing.

At my work, there was lots of discussion about working from home. Should we allow 1 day per week or 2? What kind of restrictions do you have to put in to prove we're working Blah blah blah.

Once covid hit, we found that we're more productive at home and have no need to rush back in.

There are some mumblings of returning back to work 1 day a week, but nothing concrete.

can i ask what industry most of these posters are in? I see a lot of insurance. Are there others that particularly lend themselves to work at home?

Everyone at my company - worldwide - is *forbidden* to set foot in the office without specific prior authorization.

Fine with me. And as far as productivity is concerned, mine has gone up. (Really.)

I’m on vacation this week, in case you cunts are wondering why I’m posting during business hours.

I'm in biotech r39. I do a combination of presales consulting and project management.

I think most industries have jobs that can be done remotely. A lot of peoples jobs just need a computer and a phone.

I think a lot of places are FINALLY realizing how much money they are wasting on these huge office buildings, as well as the maintenance and utilities for them, when the majority of these jobs can be done remotely. They’re always trying to find ways to save money, and this is where they can really save.

R42 don’t count your chickens. The extroverts are already bitching about not “engaging” with coworkers anymore. They’ll drag us all back to their office shenanigans again. Watch and see.

I don’t see how the economy sustain a long-term shift to WFH. Companies and pension funds have invested billions of dollars in office buildings. The buildings support an entire sub service line, including property and facilities management, architecture and design, technology, etc. The buildings support local businesses such as retail, restaurants and the local infrastructure like public transportation. Cities will not be able to manage without the tax revenue generated.

Enjoy it while it lasts but I think we’re all heading back into the office eventually for the sake of the economy.

well, that just seems like a formula for stagnation in every area, r44. How could any economy sustain the switch to computerization, to automation, to the telephone, for that matter. At some point, infrastructure and sunk costs have to give way to new options.

also, that last line in r44 is so indicative of the overall problem we face, the idea that we all exist for the great God ECONOMY. We really need to rethink that whole thing.

My friend works at Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. He says he's already been told not to return to the office until October 2021.

My partner works for a medium-sized Money Management firm. He's been told that they are looking into getting rid of much of their office space and making working from home a bigger part of the work week. Prior to the epidemic, the company was very resistant to allowing staff to work from home. Once they saw that the work is getting done and they wouldn't have to pay so much to rent office space, the leadership saw the light.

R43 In one Zoom work meeting when one of those extrovert fuckers cried about wanting to go back into the office to be around people, I flat out said to them if you want to go back into the building because you need social interaction then knock yourself out. However, many of us do NOT want to go back into the building and shouldn’t be dragged back because of people like you who can’t find ways to socialize elsewhere. They. Didn’t. Say. Shit.

We also have little surveys asking us about the WFH situation and our thoughts and I make my feelings very clear in those surveys as well.

You all need to speak up when these extrovert idiots are trying to ruin it for everyone else.

Amen r49!

It appears we’re headed for another wave, probably more vicious than the last, which will probably cause another country wide shut down. I don’t think anyone who’s working from home is going back to the office anytime soon, with the exception of companies who lick the asses of the extroverts who need (whining voice) ATTENTION. WAAH!

OP you must be the lazy frau that “covers” for me on my days off

I've worked remotely as a front end developer, as well as managing SEO and paid online marketing channels (paid search, display, native) for over 10 years now. I have no desire to go back into an office setting.

Too much drama, gossip, and bullshit from other employees. If they're not lingering around your desk talking really loud on purpose, they're eavesdropping on everything you say or do, who you meeting with at any given time, etc... I've literally gotten pulled aside by my boss because word got around the office that I was conspiring with a couple of other employees to form our own competing version of their company, and steal away employees. The reality, a couple employees stopped by my desk to ask me about how to set up a web site of their own, for some hobbies they had.

I work for Amazon and my boss just moved from NYC to Rhode Island - bought a house. So that's indicative of "when" we are going back (as in not anytime soon).

I love it for the most part.

I've been working from home since March and I love it. I don't miss the awful one-way commute of 20 miles. Word at the company is WFH will be permanent. Honestly, I wouldn't mind going in one or 2 days a week.

What I struggle with is working from home working for many companies for now, but what about hiring and integrating people in the future if most of the people are working from home most of the time? How does that work long-term? Is it just me that doesn’t understand?

I"m surprised it isn't more than 35%!

It just shows how much of a service-oriented country we're become. We're not creating anything but entertainment for people.

I went into work last week for a day after many months of being away. I forgot how long and time wasting the commute was. The office felt claustrophobic (I was the only one there) and drab.

I'd rather stay home

So happy to work from home---it's bliss not to see the work cunts with all their stupid melodramas. And countless conversations about FOOD. Damn that drove me nuts. So with zero distractions, I am far more productive. I do notice that the ones at Zoom meetings that whine about missing the "camaraderie" are always the biggest yappers and slackers. Fuck 'em---let them work for a change and earn their salaries.

I don't think our offices will ever be fully staffed again, even after COVID. I don't want to go back ever!

I"m an extrovert. I originally missed seeing my work colleagues in person...but I"ve gotten used to it. And life is just fine

The ONLY reason my company is keeping 4 floors R55 (they have multiple locations across the country so I don’t know if it is live this everywhere) is for hiring, in person IT support (getting laptops/phones/monitors), and training.

We are still doing training remotely for the moment, and I’ve talked to some new hires and their experience wasn’t great, so I expect that part to move back to in person as soon as possible, but that’s about it.

R55 has a good point. It’s easy for a pre-existing team to stay cohesive while WFH. But integrating new people into that team when there’s no face-to-face contact is going to be difficult. I love WFH, but all my team members and I were tight before the pandemic. Have any of you had to do this, and if so, how did you manage it?

I'm an introvert, and the day my company told us all to go home was one of the happiest days of my work life. I haven't missed my co-workers one bit. They're tolerable via Zoom, because I know my virtual time with them is finite, and I know that when a meeting is over and I hit the "exit" button, I won't run into them in the hallway and have to make inane small talk with them.

I have much less stress now, because I don't have to get up, shower, get dressed, and take off to the office every day. Instead, I get up, shower, put on a t-shirt and shorts, eat breakfast, watch some TV, then start my day. I shave once a week as opposed to once a day. I haven't ironed since March. And it's nice to know that I can take breaks and not have to worry about my boss breathing down my neck.

At this point, the earliest they say we'll come back to the office is January 2021. But for me, I'm permanently working from home until I retire, which hopefully will be soon.

R61 my office (in Berlin) allows only 25 people, or basically half capacity, at any given day. The working from home thing works great for teams that know each other since forever, but, indeed, we are struggling to make new people feel like they are part of a team.

I honestly have no idea how to tackle this, but I know one week of "on-site" onboarding isn't going to cut it. Maybe we just have to let go of that whole "company culture" notion…?

[quote]I love WFH, but all my team members and I were tight before the pandemic.

But your team will change eventually. People get promoted, get new jobs elsewhere, retire, a new boss comes in and fucks everything up, etc. My point is, at some point the dynamic will change and you won’t be so tight anymore and you’ll be happy to WFH to stay the fuck away from them.

Thanks, r63. You may be right - that what has to change is how we think of company culture and what constitutes a team. R64, trust me, I’m perfectly happy not to see a couple of my former colleagues on a daily basis! But my question was a bit more philosophical.

i haven't worked period

I miss not being able to share my home baked goodies with my coworkers. I used to go from cubicle to cubicle offering up my freshly baked cookies. Now I can only share pictures but they can’t taste. 😥🍪

I also miss stealing pens and using the printer when I needed to print out recipes or resumes. I don’t own a printer and now have to go to a Fed Ex office and PAY to print.

Hi Diane @r67.

Anyone else lose weight WFH without the endless supply of cookies, candy, donuts, bagels and catered lunch meetings?

I was released from the office on March 12th, under the expectation we would be coming back to the office after a few weeks. At our last staff meeting we were told we could expect to telework through the rest of the year.

I consider myself very fortunate, but at the same time I miss the experience of going into work...especially since I work in a building with so many hot guys.

[quote] [R3], aren’t all office jobs work from home now

What planet do you live on? I know plenty of office drones being forced into offices by unsympathetic bosses.

Pretty much everyone in my social circle that can work from home is still working from home r70.

I'm going to milk working from home for as long as I can. The pandemic will be over eventually. What a shitty adjustment it's going to be to have to go back!

I'm sure your "social circle" is an accurate cross section of every single other person's experiences, R71. Don't leave that bubble! You might die from exposure to the poors!

I"m enjoying only showering every 3rd day

Ewww r74! WFH is not an excuse to not WASH YOUR ASS!

I had several job interviews in the last weeks and I was stunned to hear that they expected everyone to come back to the office in October. Home office was not an option anymore which is crazy because a second wave is already here. And flu season is coming soon, so what the hell?

[quote] WFH is not an excuse to not WASH YOUR ASS!

Why bother? It's not like anyone has been near it in months.

r77, how can you stand the feeling though. Ewww!

What feeling?

r79, that feeling of funk. You shit and go 3 days without a shower or bath? Seriously.

That feeling is all in your head. Go see a psychiatrist.