I think George Costanza perfected this.
Certain jobs don’t lend themselves to remote work, I spent the better part of 38 years in the IT world, the last approximately 15 years working remotely, even though I had the option of going to the office.
The overwhelming majority of the Engineers on the team I was on would work from home 80% of the time, we would meet at the office maybe 1 day per week to BS and go to lunch together and discuss any issues we had with the conversion projects we were working on and take conference calls with teammates that were spread out around the country, since the job required significant travel around the country often times we would not see teammates for a few months at a time.
Once you get used to working remotely it’s hard to give it up, especially if your commute is in traffic both ways to/from work. People also have a tendency to stop by your cubicle or office to BS and it wastes a lot of time each day, where as for me working from home I would work off hours get more work done in a shorter amount of time.
“quiet quitting,” in which workers did the bare minimum on the job just to get by”
Hell, that’s nothing new. I worked around people like that for 40 years! Lol!
“quiet quitting,” in which workers did the bare minimum on the job just to get by”
Hell, that’s nothing new. I worked around people like that for 40 years! Lol!
“coffee badging”?...lazy, sneaking, unproductive employees?
“Employees want to socialize with one another”
For men, not so much since the #metoo thing started. Many men have refrained from having any personal interactions with female co-workers. It’s strictly business now.
The people who way way way overreacted to Covid and made everyone stay home so Trump would lose the election, had no idea that it would have the side effect of destroying the economies of major cities as people got used to ‘working from home....which is a joke. No one works from home. Even thats a joke. It’s better to just call it what it is....not working from home.
Anybody who doesn’t want to escape rush hour traffic and all of its endless hassles is clinically insane.
There’s a simple solution to this.
Make employees swipe in AND swipe out when they leave.
In before the: “They’re all just lazy! Fire everybody! Why...all employees are interchangeable cogs in the machine and you could replace them all just by snapping your fingers!” crowd.
The reality is a LOT of people can do their work at home - as they did for a year and a half to 3 years now in my case - and don’t want to undergo the hassle of commuting, paying to park, paying for lunch, paying for daycare or doggy daycare or other expenses so that they can be in a cube farm that is loud and full of interruptions. There is no real evidence that most people are more productive coming into the office. Its just that bosses have started pushing for it due to political pressure and the loss of the ability to micromanage nearly as effectively. Some bad managers want to stand over your shoulder and order you around like a 3rd grader and they keenly feel the loss when they no longer have that power.
No doubt the Leftist control freaks in HR don’t like their massive loss of power when lots of people they want to target (ie White Men) are not at the office and thus not vulnerable to any BS claims against them.
For the odd employee that actually shows up at work and takes advantage of the availability and exposure he/she offers it’s a wonderful opportunity to become indispensable to management. Take on those little jobs and efforts management would like addressed as quick as possible, offer to take on increased responsibilities, etc. Those others? Out of sight, out of mind.
We’ve got a lot of people that do that. Including the bosses. Some of like being in the office. I never left, some are back on the mandatory days all day. Some badge, scrum and out. Whatever. The work gets done.
You’d think that after Covid people would be happy to get back to their once normal routines - like going to work.
The time I'd otherwise be online and working before 9am is spent commuting. When I WFH I'm online working by 7:30am.
The time I'd be otherwise be online working after 5p is spent commuting back home.
It's 90 minutes each way. I'm forced to be in the office 3x / week. So when I'm asked why my productivity dropped I point to the fact that my employer made a conscious decision to have me return to office 3x/week eliminating 9 hours of productivity that they were getting from me prior to June of 2022, which is when they mandated RTO.
They *clearly* didn't think through the ramifications of their decision to mandate RTO for no other purpose, than mandating RTO.
Finally, YES, I've seen "coffee badgers" and it thoroughly pisses me off people do that. As much as I don't like the RTO mandate because people such as myself are as effective/moreso WFH as we are in the office, my employer does have the right to determine where I am required to work from. That they haven't thought through the consequences of their decision just makes me laugh. Seriously.
I'm financially well enough off that I'm retiring soon anyway.
Coffee Badgers don’t care
When I do go to the office, 99% of my meetings are online, because we have more than one location, across the country.
Being at the office, with the butt-high cubicle walls, in rooms that hold over 80 cubicles, is maddening. You hear everyone’s conversations, and so few are about work. I definitely catch up on what people are doing, outside of work, and get multiple opportunities to go walking with people and get coffee or other things.
I am reminded just how little anyone actually gets done, when I am at the office.
Consequently, I highly encourage going to the office, if you want to get nothing done.
Doing the bare minimum at a job is still doing the job.
Toxic corporate culture has a lot to do with it. Especially if you’re an older (strike one) white (strike two) guy (strike three).
It’s your friggin’ company. Fire their asses.
If they aren’t getting their jobs done, fire them. If the company is afraid getting sued for firing them, downsize or eliminate their job, hire someone new under a different job title.