Forced back to the office?

If your employer demanded your return to the office...

  • I'd go back to the office

    Votes: 185 50.1%

  • I'd resign

    Votes: 71 19.2%

  • I cannot speculate

    Votes: 46 12.5%

  • Other

    Votes: 67 18.2%
  • Total voters
    369
Solarion said:
Bravely said until you are without a job and suddenly realize how difficult it is to get a job. 3 months turns to 6 turns to 12 and each prospective employer once to know two things:

1. Why did you quit your job?
2. Why are you finding it so difficult to get another job.

Telling them it's the market or the jobs are scarce doesn't help, their ears are blocked to that, goes right over their heads. And so the snowball gets bigger and bigger and so do the bills.

You'll wish you had just gone back to the office. Think your boss is mean? Wait till you see how mean and ugly life can get when you are unemployed.
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Watch YouTube then you'll know how to answer these questions effectively. Different strokes for different folks. Why cut yourself short if you're skilled and determined?? We always hear "Be grateful, you're lucky you have a job" Nah fam, we work hard and know our worth. Obviously getting a job is super difficult but don't promote being a basic b* and settle for less.
 
Prawnapple said:
It'd be physically impossible for our entire company to go back, they downscaled the office size and moved it to different premises. We had a 55-seater office, now we're a 35-seater :)
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Not really , they can simply decrease size of desk areas forcing you to work with laptop only instead of additional external monitors / external keyboard / docking stations etc etc *if they want to be haregat with you*
 
Brian_G said:
I suppose all those wanting staff back in the offices will be "obliged" to insist they're vaxxed too? Starting to smell a disguised rat, maybe the only way grabbamint can get more to go for it.
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Yes and deal with mandatory vaccine policies and the usual exceptions that go with it and "negative" routine Covid-19 testing etc etc and the hoohaa of who is paying re company or employee
 
IMO the companies that have a no tolerance, back to office policy is probably very much boomer era operated. Typically folk that don't deal well with technology, wants to be "big boss" and "wants to make sure their employees are working". That is of course their prerogative, the contract existed before that as such, but a trend has started and in the highly educated sector where he brain drain is a problem, it will hurt those employers long term. Unless ofc they are very prestigious and can afford such a policy (but even then it will still hurt them to some extent).

More progressive thinkers have realised there are HUGE benefits (rent, more hours by employees because no commute, no clear switch off time, utilities to actively monitor employees rather than easily fallible, "look in on them every now and then"). One of the very, very significant benefits to our society is that property prices will trend back down for some time as people no longer need to move into highly populated CBDs.

The only reason I actually bought a place in Sea Point for example was because it was close to town. I have no desire to live in an apartment close to a noisy street when for the same money I could live in a ballin' house elsewhere. It just doesn't make sense and many of my colleagues agree I think because they've simply sold their places in town and moved outward (like really outward).
 
Sargeant said:
Nobody managed to "work just fine" - service levels are atrocious and everybody blames COVID. If even Google and Microsoft can't make work from home work, I don't think there are many that will. We tried it, it failed, let's move one.
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Well , if the IVR queue said please wait your call is important , it now says due to Covid-19 blah blah you must still wait for assistance
So there was an excuse before Covid-19 anyways , in other words the services offered and supported were already crappy pre-pandemic
 
fismail said:
Not really , they can simply decrease size of desk areas forcing you to work with laptop only instead of additional external monitors / external keyboard / docking stations etc etc *if they want to be haregat with you*
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True, luckily my company is not run by assholes that'd do that.
 
I struggle to work from home so I have been going to the office if I am not at clients.
 
I've noticed quite a few employees push to go back to the office, I've also noticed it's mostly the type of employee who doesn't contribute much, and spends their time at the office socializing.
 
xrapidx said:
I've noticed quite a few employees push to go back to the office, I've also noticed it's mostly the type of employee who doesn't contribute much, and spends their time at the office socializing.
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In our office, you can spot the ones who don't have air conditioning at home :p

/slowly raises hand
 
I do not have a choice in this decision. If I don't want to comply, it's probably a career ending move. So, for me, this is a thing of comply and make the most of it.

It is described as a new way of working. I plan to negotiate a much earlier start to my day and get my 9 hours started by 6.30am. Then be on the road home by 3.30pm. Anything less is a lose.
 
My office today. Two sliding doors that get hit by the sun from about 9am till about 5pm.

Probably do an aircon before the end of the year though.
bbe3fdddc30f73d7cf02c76984c8890a.jpg
 
Pleased as pie that I worked from home before it became cool. (Damn lazy millennials...).

I was almost called back to the office for two weeks in order to help with training. I started to realize how good I've had it while mulling through the logistics of how to get the kids to and back from school, having to pay for aftercare etc.

Thankfully, training never happened.

If I were to be recalled back to the office then I would make the most of it and start very early. PE early. So at 6:30 in order to finish early.

I dont really have a choice in the matter, I value my job and it has treated me well thus far.
 
Go back to the office, but look elsewhere. Fortunately in my line of work there are opportunities out there for remote work. You might not have that luxury.
 
I'm getting to that point right now. I worked in the office for nearly 30 years. Now, largely at home for close to 2. No real problem going back, although there are things I've managed to do at home that would have been difficult in my old office-based life (projects requiring long hours of uninterrupted concentration).

The two years at home have been a learning experience. Nothing is stopping me from closing my office door and concentrating on something in the office. I've just never done this much before. What I will miss are those days when I've been able to work intensively with breaks and/or naps to refresh me (although, again, there's no real reason why I can't do this at the office).

I have colleagues who prefer to work from the office because of disturbances at home - small apartments, unreliable internet coverage, small kids, etc.

When the announcement came that we would be returning to the office, my immediate thought was to argue for a more flexible approach to the office. Sure, it's possible, but what the past two years have shown us is this is possible, and the positives and negatives (and there are some) of lots of people not being in the office at any time. For me, I'd like a more flexible approach, but it should be implemented for itself and not because of COVID.
 
I don't mind going back to the office, it's been over 2 years working from home.

However during the lockdown I managed to find another job, with a European company eager to employ South Africas with the right skills. There is no physical office in South Africa, so it's a permanent work from home job for me now.

IT by the way.
 
xrapidx said:
I've noticed quite a few employees push to go back to the office, I've also noticed it's mostly the type of employee who doesn't contribute much, and spends their time at the office socializing.
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How do you know some of our office staff? :ROFL: :ROFL: 2 of managers and some of their acolytes are trying to get our IT head to return back to office. These 2 managers used to be secretaries in previous life and now glorified scrum masters and since they can't get used to azure and they miss their scrum boards and all the post-it notes they took pride to move from A to B.
 
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