QOTW: Are you setup to continue working from home?

[Unique]

i have a better setup at home than in the office, and 2.5 hours less travel time each day. add my lunch break and time getting ready/dressed in workclothes and back out at the end of the day, that's about 4 more hours a day to myself, 20 hours a week, 80 hours a month

i have fast internet, coffee machines, comfy chair and desk and monitor setups, fridge full of water, soda, juice and food. i can put the heating to the level i like or sit next to the fan when it's hot and wear what i want, not much in this weather

i can work with music or tv on, instead of listening to people talk about crap on tv or sports, no one can look over my shoulder or come to my desk and interupt me

so all that extra time, makes me much happier and less stressed, and not being bothered in the office means i can get on and concentrate and get the job done better

less spend on the commute, less temptation of going in shops on way to work, or to takeaways, plus WFH tax break means more money to myself, so with the time and money i've managed to refurb my home, update my wardrobe and pc's and gadgets, making my home working environment even better

the business is considering getting rid of it's big office, so savings in rent and rates and stuff for them, and we may look at other places if we need to have in person meetings, which will typically be much closer to me than the office

out of the team, it's mainly just one or two older people who don't like that setup as they aren't very IT literate and rely on hovering over other peoples desks instead of using google and tech to find the answer. we've already lost a couple of older team members for similar reasons, they just weren't cut out for having to use IT without someone to do their work, even though they've been using IT for decades to do their work, they just used it like a monkey pressing buttons instead of understanding what they are doing and what it means. in their place we got people who understand what they were doing, and do a better and more efficient job. it's just a metter of time that happens to the others who can't adapt

[Saracen999]

i have a better setup at home than in the office, and 2.5 hours less travel time each day. add my lunch break and time getting ready/dressed in workclothes and back out at the end of the day, that's about 4 more hours a day to myself, 20 hours a week, 80 hours a month

i have fast internet, coffee machines, comfy chair and desk and monitor setups, fridge full of water, soda, juice and food. i can put the heating to the level i like or sit next to the fan when it's hot and wear what i want, not much in this weather

i can work with music or tv on, instead of listening to people talk about crap on tv or sports, no one can look over my shoulder or come to my desk and interupt me

so all that extra time, makes me much happier and less stressed, and not being bothered in the office means i can get on and concentrate and get the job done better

less spend on the commute, less temptation of going in shops on way to work, or to takeaways, plus WFH tax break means more money to myself, so with the time and money i've managed to refurb my home, update my wardrobe and pc's and gadgets, making my home working environment even better

....

If I was still working, and hadn't 'retired' years ago, then .... that. It's largely why I worked from home. That, and having a great boss to work for .... me.

[ik9000]

wfh all the way. We're not getting an office. We're just going to find some meeting spaces etc for a central location and to get somewhere for mail redirection, receptionist call forwarding etc.

[OwP]

My wife worked 2 days a week at home before the virus hit, pretty sure thats going to be 5 days a week at home permanently. Just the occasional day in the office when required, think she has been in twice in the last year! This is hleped by her having a dedicated home office and great FTTP.

I on the other hand haven't worked at home a single day.

[pumpkin]

Used to work one day a week from home, before all this.
I'm a Developer/Software Engineer/Programmer, so miss the interaction and the chance to bounce ideas around now that we're five days a week at home, so looking forward to going back. We're a small British group in a large US Corporation so come September we're probably going back one-two days a week in the office.

Having said that I'll be retired before we can go back.

[Iota]

I'm not an office based worker anyway, so it's made zero difference to me with all of the lockdowns.

[nar53]

I am but as I'm retired I don't work from home whilst both my Son & my Mrs do.

[3dcandy]

Both of us here work from home now. I'm me own boss so that's cool, but the wifey has just started a job and currently no plans to return to the office as productivity is higher at home. They had a short poll and basically 90% of the workforce at her place said they'd quit if they had to go back to the office, but her line manager has had to return from next Monday and she really isn't happy

[tazzrats]

I have some friends and family that had to move to working from home, I even had to build a PC for one of them! Some of their businesses are saving so much money with the new practice that they are making it permanent.

It's an interesting one, some people seem to love it, but for others it was their social life and they are sad it's gone...

[spacein_vader]

I have some friends and family that had to move to working from home, I even had to build a PC for one of them! Some of their businesses are saving so much money with the new practice that they are making it permanent.

It's an interesting one, some people seem to love it, but for others it was their social life and they are sad it's gone...

I'd take that as a warning. If I realised that work was my social life it shows my work/life balance is horribly skewed.

[Hoonigan]

I think work like it, as it means they can sell off even more buildings.

A few people have said this, and it raises an interesting question. Who's gonna buy those buildings?

[Glyce]

I work from "home" since 2015. Software engineer...

[DanceswithUnix]

A few people have said this, and it raises an interesting question. Who's gonna buy those buildings?

Around here, some are converting to flats.

Execution can be comically bad, with a long office window starting in one flat and ending in the next with a wall half way through. But in in theory, it throws up housing really fast which hopefully takes some pressure off converting the farm land around the town to housing.

[siu99spj]

So, been WFHing since March last year. Generally fine, some things much harder to do, many things the same. The commute has gone, but being that it was a 15 minute walk, it's no benefit (Now have to find time/place to get my exercise).

However, I was made redundant in December, been hunting for a new job since then (19 years since I last did that, so it wasn't the easiest thing to do). Finally found a job that I liked and they seemed to like me too. And it's WFH with occasional (Monthly?) visits to Site/Office.

However, they're up in Scotland and I'm down South of London, so that's gonna be a pain. Talking to wifey we may yet up sticks and head North. Guess we'll just see how it goes at first. We rather like life down here...

[cheesemp]

Been working from home during the lockdowns as mandated by the government. My firm being international has been very keen to get us back in the office - we even went back between the 2nd and 3rd lockdowns briefly. We are due back in September on a 3 day in the office, 2 days from home rota as set by the company (same as Apple). Its really annoying to have zero choice when and where I work and quite frankly demoralising. I have had the most productive year I've ever had (And was reviewed as such). I also spend 99% of my time working alone or with our outsource group in Ukraine via teams and this will not change for at least another year. I do not understand why I need to be in the office so much. I'm going to keep pushing for more flexibility but if it remains like this I will be thinking about my future. My firms CEO is an Apple fan so I think this is why we are copying the Apple style of remote working...

[ik9000]

Around here, some are converting to flats.

Execution can be comically bad, with a long office window starting in one flat and ending in the next with a wall half way through. But in in theory, it throws up housing really fast which hopefully takes some pressure off converting the farm land around the town to housing.

Office to flat conversion can work, or can be awful. Generally the floor plates in office buildings are sized for office pods, and the standard widths for resi are different, so the grids often create problems from the off as you say, with large windows being problematic in modern curtain-wall glazing facades. Similar problems can arise with:

• office floors often having long spans, and being permitted greater vibrations in service (regular use) which can make them more bouncy and this can cause problems with footfall induced vibration from people walking in communal corridors etc exciting floors into bedrooms (people are most susceptible to notice vibration while lying down)
• office floor-ceiling heights being lower than resi standards
• offices being permitted lower lighting levels and an assumption of centralised building services to aid air flow, heating, cooling, water etc. Converting to discrete units can create issues and you get some real dead space in the middle of floors where in an office it would be acceptable but for a resi apartment is quite sucky.
• service risers in an office being in places that worked well for office distribution, but can be a pain to get all services to every resi unit. E.g. in an office you could have just one toilet area per floor, often by the lift core. In a resi every unit needs its own kitchen and bathroom so plumbing and drainage needs to be installed to every unit. This can be problematic given the falls needed for waste pipes etc if they have to travel great distances. So then you need to introduce new vertical risers to accommodate this. Ideally those risers would be in communal areas, as would as much of the service runs as possible. A big no-no with resi is to have to access one apartment to fix another apartment's services. There's often a complete services overhaul required as a result of switching from office to resi.
  
  The upsides of converting office to resi
• offices tend to have the same greater fire design periods as resi
• office imposed loading is equivalent to resi loading plus partition allowance so building load and foundation capacity usually fine
• offices tend to have either raised floor or suspended ceiling so usually some scope for altering finishes etc - but it can mess up floor:window relative heights etc if too much variation in the new scheme
• modern offices tend to have lifts. That really helps. Retrofitting them can be a pain, but is usually achievable.
• modern offices tend to have decent internet connection, providing the client is willing to retain it and install the appropriate ISP tech to serve the properties.