Lost all credibility when it implied working from home is working from the “couch”. This is not what working from home means in a professional context. Dedicated working spaces with a desk, monitors, and a proper chair is working from home in a modern organisation.
When the pandemic started, my sisters and I would work from the dinner table. Then gradually we all drifted into different rooms, buying desks to work on. Pretty soon we had our own offices in our house. These people don’t know or care to find out what normal people are like, they make decisions based on their own assumptions and that’s why their employees hate them.
Treat them like humans, take the time to ask them what they think. Have some goddamn empathy for fuck’s sake.
Completely agree! It’s a privileged place to be in to have the room to dedicate to an office but I think it’s necessary to have that setup to work from home properly without screwing your body, if nothing else.
My office is a 4 by 4m corner of my bedroom. I’m lucky in that I can devote that much space to it. But it’s all about having a place you can dedicate to being your workspace. If that’s on a couch, then let it be on the couch. At the end of the day, if you’re fulfilling the tasks outlined in your job description then there’s really nothing to complain about.
I spent the first year of covid working from the couch, and it was more than fine, at least from a work perspective. I was more productive there, I think, than I am in my home office! But it robbed me of my den. I was only able to be productive in that space by it no longer being a relaxation and entertainment space. So, I had to reclaim it.
But still, the idea of working from a comfortable space is something employers see as unprofessional, and a sign you’re not actually working. They’re wrong, but perception always wins out. And in their minds, that’s what we’re doing when working from home - being comfortable, relaxing, and not doing any work.
Employers have publicly accused employees of “time theft” over and over again since lockdowns started, and have brought it up in almost every discussion about RTO. They see people working from their living room as this “time theft”, even as the amount of work that they get done has remained consistent with, or even higher than, what they got done at the office. Simply by being at home, were theives in their minds. Because they can’t be creepy little shits and stand to greet us when we get back from lunch 2 minutes late, or time how long we’re in the bathroom.
If you enjoy doing something, that’s leisure, and you should be paying for it.
If someone is paying you to do something, then it clearly isn’t something you’d pay for doing yourself, so you can’t enjoy doing it.
Work is suffering, or it isn’t “real” work.
If you aren’t suffering while claiming to be at work, then you’re clearly stealing your employer’s time.
Unfortunately, there do exist people willing to get paid for doing nothing, pretty much every employer ends up meeting some sooner or later, so even those who claim to look for people who “like and are passionate about their work”, in reality end up trying to catch the lazy grifters to cut them out.
I spent a while during lockdown taking video calls from my bed. It doesn’t matter where you are. The whole point of a laptop is to be able to work anywhere.
Most professional jobs can’t be done from a couch without screwing your body or compromising your work space, etc. A laptop on your knees isn’t a professional work environment for most people.
Sometimes I attend to meetings from my couch. As did I in the office. But I have two great monitors, a height adjustable table, a great office chair, a fan, the light is perfect for my desk…
Sure, joining a call from the couch, bed, or toilet is a thing but it’s not something that is the entire day. I agree about having a better desk set up at home - I spent a lot of my own money making my home environment better.
Lost all credibility when it implied working from home is working from the “couch”. This is not what working from home means in a professional context. Dedicated working spaces with a desk, monitors, and a proper chair is working from home in a modern organisation.
When the pandemic started, my sisters and I would work from the dinner table. Then gradually we all drifted into different rooms, buying desks to work on. Pretty soon we had our own offices in our house. These people don’t know or care to find out what normal people are like, they make decisions based on their own assumptions and that’s why their employees hate them.
Treat them like humans, take the time to ask them what they think. Have some goddamn empathy for fuck’s sake.
Completely agree! It’s a privileged place to be in to have the room to dedicate to an office but I think it’s necessary to have that setup to work from home properly without screwing your body, if nothing else.
My office is a 4 by 4m corner of my bedroom. I’m lucky in that I can devote that much space to it. But it’s all about having a place you can dedicate to being your workspace. If that’s on a couch, then let it be on the couch. At the end of the day, if you’re fulfilling the tasks outlined in your job description then there’s really nothing to complain about.
Also why would working from the couch even be bad? Surely being comfortable while working is objectively better?
I spent the first year of covid working from the couch, and it was more than fine, at least from a work perspective. I was more productive there, I think, than I am in my home office! But it robbed me of my den. I was only able to be productive in that space by it no longer being a relaxation and entertainment space. So, I had to reclaim it.
But still, the idea of working from a comfortable space is something employers see as unprofessional, and a sign you’re not actually working. They’re wrong, but perception always wins out. And in their minds, that’s what we’re doing when working from home - being comfortable, relaxing, and not doing any work.
Employers have publicly accused employees of “time theft” over and over again since lockdowns started, and have brought it up in almost every discussion about RTO. They see people working from their living room as this “time theft”, even as the amount of work that they get done has remained consistent with, or even higher than, what they got done at the office. Simply by being at home, were theives in their minds. Because they can’t be creepy little shits and stand to greet us when we get back from lunch 2 minutes late, or time how long we’re in the bathroom.
The logic goes like:
Unfortunately, there do exist people willing to get paid for doing nothing, pretty much every employer ends up meeting some sooner or later, so even those who claim to look for people who “like and are passionate about their work”, in reality end up trying to catch the lazy grifters to cut them out.
US supermarkets forcing cashiers to stand comes to mind. Always has been mind-boggling to me and btw is blatantly illegal over here.
I spent a while during lockdown taking video calls from my bed. It doesn’t matter where you are. The whole point of a laptop is to be able to work anywhere.
Most professional jobs can’t be done from a couch without screwing your body or compromising your work space, etc. A laptop on your knees isn’t a professional work environment for most people.
https://www.google.com/search?q=couch+laptop+table&tbm=isch
https://www.google.com/search?q=physiotherapist+near+me
Sure, consult with your therapist before picking one of the hundreds of different options.
Sometimes I attend to meetings from my couch. As did I in the office. But I have two great monitors, a height adjustable table, a great office chair, a fan, the light is perfect for my desk…
That’s way more than I had at the office.
Sure, joining a call from the couch, bed, or toilet is a thing but it’s not something that is the entire day. I agree about having a better desk set up at home - I spent a lot of my own money making my home environment better.
That’s what I meant. No matter what that dude thinks about WFH, I didn’t spend all that money to wreck my back on the couch.
Sorry if it sounded like I don’t agree with you - I do!
Ah, missed that. Sorry ❤️🩹