FU money has also given the willingness to look for a permanent job working from home. The pandemic forced everyone at my job to work from home starting March 2020 and most are still doing this. Despite the great success the company has had in this work model, they suddenly decided that we "do our best work together" and that all employees will be in the physical office at least three days a week. I loooooove working from home and there isn't anything about my job that requires being at the office. The forced WFH experiment has proven that it works. The only reason they want developers back is micromanagement. I applied for permanent home work. The CIO himself has to approve it. My reasoning was honest - preference. I have already told my boss that if it's not approved I'll just find a job at any one of the abundant remote development jobs that are out there now. We'll see what happens.
This is funny. We have been working *mostly* from home since March 2020 also, except for the 15% of people who need to be in person to run equipment. In the last few months, more people have been going in because they are vaccinated. Lots of people love working at home - saves on commute, fewer distractions.
The company has been saying since May that we'll be returning to the office in September. At least weekly, we are told to think about this and plan for this. Also: they realize that WFH is attractive to many, so it will be allowed, for a maximum of 2 days a week. In summary:
- plan for returning to the office
- discuss with your manager
- we aren't going to be specifying the details company-wide, you have to work it out for your manager
- it can be 3 days at the office/ 2 days at home, or 4/1, but you MUST be in the office at least 3 days
- but work it out with your manager :P
- (obvious lack of discussion about the 2 employees who live in other states - they were kept on FT after they moved away)
- obvious lack of discussion about how we have employees in Asia that we work with daily
- tiny bit of discussion (brought up by me) that new equipment is going into the building and we are losing office space.
- tiny bit of discussion about our growing COVID cases locally
But...is anyone REALLY going to be checking? I mean, I have late afternoon meeting with Asia 3-4 days a week, and I really don't want to be at the office until 6:30 or 7 pm 3-4 days a week. If I take them from home, I can eat dinner while working...
Anyway, fun times.