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Me who likes working in a office:
People who are having a great time at work are the reason I like WFH
I personally don’t have an issue with WFH as long as you are getting work done. If you can manage yourself go for it. It is nice to see people face to face once in a while but that doesn’t mean 3 days a week.
I may be an outlier, but it feels great to be car free in a walkable city.
I don’t mind walking but sometimes the distances are a but far. I do know a lot of people who ride bikes. Bikes has the benefit of being small and having a place to put a bag. It also probably has to do with air quality as in some places the air is bad.
I couldn’t have done it if I stayed in the states. No judgment on anyone who lives in a structurally car dependent area and doesn’t have a good alternative
Then go to the office, don’t be angry if others don’t go
Nicely done.
This is such an odd restriction for IT staff. Normally HR gives you a form to sign agreeing to working remotely sometimes and having company data on your phone because you know, servers are meant to stay on all the time? It must be nice living in a world where nothing bad happens after hours.
In a sane world, they give you a company phone when you are on reserve duty and they agree to pay compensation for being on reserve. Why would you agree to work for free?
On the other extreme, 24/7 operations have redundancy.
A friend of mine explained that being an Emergency Medicine physician is a great job for work life balance, despite the fact that he often has to work ridiculous shifts, because he never has to take any work home with him. An Emergency Room is a 24/7 operation, so whenever he’s at home, some other doctor is responsible for whatever happens. So he gets to relax and never think about work when he’s not at work and not on call.
not. the. point. listen carefully and you can hear the whoosh of the argument which is being made in the attached screenshot.
working from home for this tech, is the same as having to schlep into the office, all their work is done remotely, as in not in front of the client computers or servers, but from their workstation. doesn’t matter where their workstation is, either in down the hall in an office building, in their home, or timbuktu
having requested to work from home, and having been denied, this tech is now arguing that “working from home” isn’t considered as good as working from the office, so, if it’s not considered as good, the employer shouldn’t ever be asking them to do it
it’s not going to work out for the tech, obviously, but that’s the argument they are making
My guess is that some businesses get tax breaks from municipalities in exchange for filling office spaces with warm bodies. The idea is that people in office buildings support local businesses by buying lunch, and sometimes grabbing a pint after work.
I’m not trying to excuse this trend, in fact as an IT person myself I 100% agree with the sentiment, I’m just trying to share what I’ve been told.
It’s even simpler than that: they leased the office space and have to continue to pay that lease or else pay an early termination fee. This is basically the sunk cost fallacy. But you are right that sometimes additionally they get tax breaks for certain office space, for instance the San Francisco mid-market tax break (AKA the Twitter tax break)
This is the excuse my employer gave. So I’m to take a pay cut (gas, wear and tear on my vehicle, loss of time to commute) so I can spend more money to prop up other businesses for a tax break that is likely to go into some rich ass C-levels bonus or shareholders pocket for cut costs?
Fuuuck that. Its just another way of picking the labor class clean to the bone.
Yes. That’s exactly what is happening.
Corporations want their money
but it’s not their money until they coerce people into giving it to them
Commercial realestste makes up a significant amount of rich people’s investment portfolios. And if people stopped needing office space the property would devalue and those rich people would lose easy money.
So they have all collectively agreed to force their workers back to the office I order to keep the real estate values up and keep their investments positive.
Also rich can afford to have a investment in busy city areas while regular folk can get a house in urban areas at best. And work from home is leading people to the urban areas where rents are less.
I work night shifts. My manager one time called me around 2pm to ask me something menial and waking me up (as I was still sleeping for my next shift at 7pm).
So naturally, I called him at 2AM when I was at work… because I had an “urgent” question about a work policy lol. He got the picture, and that shit never happened again
in my country you’re not obligated to answer to anything work related after your work hours unless you’re manager or superior or it is exliciptly said in work contract that you be on call.
In my country you are on call and not paid for it, thats the workaround there.
I get comp time when I’m on call.
well that sucks
Yup, on call pay was rolled in pay which was then cut back to where it was previously. Fuck Irish unions.
I refuse to install any work related software on my phone. Not only because I don’t want to be contacted after hours, but companies often “require” full read/write access on your device, so they can remotely wipe their data if you quit or get fired.
Fuck that.
Yeah and they want to install some profile that gives them access and puts your internet connection through their VPN. My coworkers look at me like I’m crazy because I carry a work device and a personal device. Like, why would I give my employer access to all of my web traffic on my phone? You’re crazy if you don’t carry two devices.
That’s a no for me dawg.
Yeah that’s beyond fucked. That’s a major privacy issue.
No modern MDM solution allows a company to access your personal data on BYOD. That’s why containerization of work profiles exist. Anything else would be a massive privacy scandal.
Company-owned devices, though, do have that level of access when MDM enrolled.
Regardless, times I’ve tried to get access to work stuff on my phone I stopped because I had to agree to let my entire device be remotely wiped if they chose to. I had absolutely zero faith that they wouldn’t accidentally do it as a matter of procedure if/when I left the company so I didn’t do it.
Not to mention the possibility of a disgruntled IT person deleting everything they can on their way out. Sure, it would be a whole can of worms for that person and they might regret it because of the consequences, but that wouldn’t bring my data back. Same if it was done accidentally because of incompetence.
Intune installs as a device adminstration. I’m not sure how much I’d trust that on my personal device period.
They can say what they like.
VERY few companies have been sued for being as big a bunch of lying dinks as Microsoft has.
We need to learn from this shit. Ads on login screens? Privacy issues? Solarwinds sploit letting Russian hackers get to the windows source? How many more red flags are our security groups going to ignore?
You’re talking about MDM in Intune which is only used on corporate owned devices. MAM is used for personal devices and does not have device administration access. It’s in the name - Mobile Application Management.
This implies that the company has a competent IT team that rolls it out correctly, and that there won’t be some way to exploit it and dig in further than expected.
Also:
On personal devices, it’s normal and expected for users to check email, join meetings, update files, and more. Many organizations allow personal devices to access organization resources.
(From the site)
Lmao WHAT? It’s normal for users to do company shit on their personal phone? What kind of delusional Spongebob bullshit is that? Is the company gonna pay for data or subsidize the cost of my phone? Are they going to pay me to be on call if they expect me to of this shit outside of my working hours?
Good luck if you run a de-googled ROM. I can’t install sandboxed Google Play Services inside the profile because its not approved. I could try and sideload it in, but I’d rather just go without.
That’s a fair point. Microsoft says that they don’t… but, not that they can’t. It’s especially tricky on iOS.
I’d love to honestly believe that. But I still wouldn’t risk ever doing a BYOD with a company that forced me to install anything on my personal devices.
This is absolutely correct. Heck, you’re free to deny that based on any reasoning, maybe the shoddy icon of the work app doesn’t match your phone wallpaper.
The phone is your private property, if an employer requires an app to be installed to do your job, they can provide a phone.
I would also never let corporate IT manage a device, e. g. a laptop connected to my private network at home.
I would also never let corporate IT manage a device, e. g. a laptop connected to my private network at home.
That’s pretty standard for working from home. I’m expected to use the company provided, managed laptop with my internet connection.
I figured so long as I made sure of things like there weren’t any open file shares and things like routers and IP cameras were password protected there wasn’t a whole they could see.
If I was really paranoid I could set up a VLAN or something.
I know it is somewhat of an accepted practice, and a lot of people lack the means or the knowledge to handle it any other way, but I’d still like to raise awareness that you’re basically inviting a foreign actor into your network.
The days were people would trust corporations, including their employers, to be generally benevolent and to do the right thing are long over.
I would also never let corporate IT manage a device, e. g. a laptop connected to my private network at home.
If you ever must, buy a new laptop. And use it on a guest wifi network. Use it as you would a work laptop, nothing personal on it
No, have the company buy a laptop, and if necessary, also have them buy the hardware that allows for proper network separation, if not already available.
Just another thing to be aware of.
Not all companies will do that
Surely not. But also many employees won’t even ask for it, and change will only happen if people care about it.
So first, raise awareness, and naturally, implement those things at any companies you manage or own.
I’m not saying quit your job and become homeless if your employer won’t corporate with you on the issue. Everyone should think about how this could potentially affect them and what they can do within the constraints they operate in, though.
As someone else in this thread said, a separate (VLAN, guest) network for work devices, reasonable access rules etc. can go a long way. Eventually, I would like this to become unacceptable though.
The two consessions I’ve made are Teams, and the MFA software.
I am often running around to various sites and being able to use a quick chat is better than pulling out my laptop, and I turn it off when I’m off the clock.
I’m with you there. My previous employer wanted a bunch of their shit on my phone. I asked if they were supplying me with a work a phone, and they said no, you already have one. I said I do, and it’s mine, and I’m not putting anything on it for work because work and home are going to be two different things. They gave me a work phone and then wanted to know why I turned it off in the parking lot before I even got into my car. I’m done working for the day sir.
wanted to know why I turned it off in the parking lot before I even got into my car. I’m done working for the day sir.
My co-worker locked his in his desk drawer when he went home for the night.
Can’t you demand a company-provided device then? It’s their fault that you need those apps.
Yup same. It’s crazy how many people willing installed Intune and shit on their personal phone. If my company wants me to have that level of portability, then they’ll be buying a work phone for me and paying me overtime any time I’m forced to use it out of regular hours
Veronica!..is that you?!
Weird that you’d have to be available outside of work hours
My previous workplace was like this. It didn’t get to this point, I left before it got to the point of being told you’re not allowed to wfh under any circumstances, but I was very confused why I needed to go to the office, to do my IT job, helping people with their computers remotely. I go to the office, to work remotely. Which doesn’t make any sense at all.
What is special about the office that allows me to work better/faster/more effectively/whatever? Nobody could give me an answer. I can easily run the tools at home and work fine from there, but I’m not allowed.
My specialty is in network operations, if they want my work to 100% go through their equipment and firewalls and stuff, I can make that happen. With little effort, I can setup a system on a VLAN, and VPN that VLAN to work, blocking it from all other traffic apart from the VPN. It would be the only system on that VLAN (apart from the firewall/VPN device), ensuring no possibility of cross contamination between my equipment and theirs. They even had an openVPN host already configured, which they would only need to generate a connection file for, in order for me to get it working. I can then proxy 100% of my traffic through an office system and it would be identical to being present in the office, apart from me being physically there.
At home I have a dedicated room for my computer activities, where I can close the door and lock it if required, so I can remain undisturbed.
I made sure they understood all of this but they still wanted me in the office at least 4 days a week. I’m still not sure why.
I left that job, and my new job doesn’t even have a physical office, so I’m permanently working from home.
I’ve worked for numerous enterprises since the 90’s.
None of them have been this idiotic. All of them implemented secure channels. Remember SecurID cards for dial up connections?
They probably wanted to get rid of you. So instead of firing you, they imposed stupid rules to makes you leave on your own.
Or a “constructive dismissal”.
Oh probably. From everything I saw it was impossible for me to meet their demands.
Partway through my employment I moved to a new home, after a few months my SO got a job. She doesn’t have a license but needed to travel about 15 minutes to work (30m round trip). I was basically the only person who could, or would, help her get to work. I worked 9-5, her shift was 2:30 to 10:30.
For a while, my brother would drive her to work and I would drive her home, even that was stressful, because I’d wake up at 6:30 to shower and get ready to leave by 8AM so I can be at work for 9, then I had to stay up to bring her home, which she wasn’t out at 10:30 promptly every day, so I’d frequently get home after 11:30. Going to bed at, or after midnight, to wake up by 6:30 AM, five days a week isn’t fun, even at four days in the office per week, it was not great.
Thought-out this time I was asking for more wfh, since then I can at least sleep from midnight to 8 AM or so. They wouldn’t budge.
My brother ended up having a medical issue that caused him to be unable to drive her to work, so I told my employer I had to work from home, since I have to take care of getting her both to, and from work, and that, at most, the situation would last around 10-12 months (she was working on her driver’s license, and that’s the minimum waiting/learning time for new drivers, before they can drive without a chaperone); I also informed them that I could attend the office once per week, since she had one weekday off per week as part of her shift rotation. They “compromised” by basically telling me to follow their schedule or be laid off. Their schedule was: in office every day from 9-1. Travel home between 1 and 2pm, and do what’s needed to get my SO to work. Once I’m done that, I can work from home when I return from dropping her off (usually 2:30 or 3 PM to 5 PM or so… Whatever our quitting time was), with one day (her day off) fully in office, and one day fully from home. So 3 of 5 days was this insane in-office then drive home and finish at home thing, one day was fully remote, and one day was fully in office.
Needless to say, I burned out fast. Got a note from my doctor saying I was disabled (he didn’t specify why, but if push came to shove it would be something mental health related, he never needed to AFAIK), and I wasn’t able to work right now, and currently the recovery time needed was unknown. So I went on disability.
I also want to mention that through all the half day nonsense, they expected me to log 6.5 hours in their time tracking software, which is something I struggle with at the best of times. When I’m stressed, the first thing that suffers is my ability to correctly log and account for my time in any system. So I had 4 hours in the morning to work from the office on my “split days” (as I called them), plus, maybe 2.5 hours at most during my work from home time. Totalling 6.5 hours. I couldn’t so much as take a shit or I would fall behind on my time tracking. Normally over an 8 hour shift, the 1.5 hours of missing time in the day would be for breaks/lunch. It’s hard to take lunch when I’m barely able to make it home in an hour, and barely able to get to/from her work in 30 minutes. I usually work through lunch because I tend to have time where I have no idea what I was doing, so I can’t really account for it in the time tracker. With the 1.5 hour block of driving in the middle of my day, plus all the distractions and unaccounted time I know I’ll accrue from co-workers pulling me away from my work to ask asinine questions about things that don’t have a presence in the time tracking system (all ticket based, and they would ask me about prospective projects that wouldn’t have a ticket for months), I knew that what they were asking as an impossible task.
After I felt up to the task of returning to that insanity, instead of keeping my seat warm for me, they laid me off before I was set to return to work. I only felt up to it because it would have only been a matter of a few months before my SO was able to take her driver’s test to be able to drive solo, and after 6 months of being off I wasn’t suicidal from the stress anymore, but the bills were starting to pile up.
I was able to determine that they hired a new person in the same role I had, who was on probation at the time when I wanted to return.
I’ll let you conclude what you want from that. I’ll legally bound not to speak poorly of the company, or what happened after my layoff. Everything I’ve said here is simply the facts of the matter.
In any case, after some thought, I’m glad I don’t work with people who would force me into that kind of position for a paycheque. I have a new job now and I’m slowly paying off any accumulated bills from my time disabled and/or laid off. The new company, as I believe I’ve mentioned, is entirely wfh, and I’m certain if I ended up in a similar spot, they would be vastly more empathetic to my plight. I’m even earning a small amount more per year, not enough to write home about, but it’s still a bigger number than I was given at the last place. I’m happy where I am, and I’m largely not stressed, apart from the normal stresses of my job. I no longer need to pay for gas to get to the office, nor parking, since the previous job was located in a nearby city in the downtown area, with no free parking for employees, so I had to get paid public parking out of my own pocket. I estimate the change will save me around $6000/yr or more. On top of my small bump in pay, I should have a bit less than $10k/yr more money to myself. Right now all of that is sunk into repayments, but long term, its basically free money.
If you work in the US, NDAs tied to severance are generally illegal.
Even so, I gave my last employer the benefit of silence for the amount of time my severance would have covered in regular salary. That time is now past.
Not in the USA, I’m not sure that we have a similar law. Any agreement that may or may not have resulted from the above story, which I cannot confirm nor deny, would have been examined by a legal professional whom is familiar with local laws and if such an error were to have been included in such a document, they would have surely pointed it out.
I’m not saying that’s what happened, but if it did, I certainly would have had any such agreement looked at by a professional who is familiar with the laws to the point of knowing if such a thing were not enforceable.
I wish I could say more specifically what happened, including my opinions, or name and shame the company involved but I am compelled to not disclose any such information. I also cannot elaborate on why or how I am limited on what I can disclose.
I feel like I’m walking a tightrope. The chances that someone is going to even care enough to trace my username to my identity, then do something about it, is pretty slim, even if I were to disclose everything, and name and shame as I would love to do… But I’m more honorable than most I suppose.
Removed by mod
Malicious Compliance! The only way to go.
Good for you. I refuse to put work related stuff on my phone. Especially since they want permission to remotely wipe my device if it’s lost. I paid for this phone, it is mine, not theirs. Bye.
Good way to get fired and have nothing for it. Pyrrhic victory. You better have an escape plan when you get fired.
Those companies aren’t worth staying at anyway.
Plenty of good companies that don’t mistreat their employees.
Some workplaces are so poorly run they dont even fire people clearly collecting paychecks.
Ive literally seen management prevent someone from being fired for telling off a customer and swearing at them, because “we need them!”.
You go ahead and make that bet.
IMO this is just employer revenge porn and would be almost overwhelmingly bad for the employees.
Plenty of people are making that bet. Work from home is important to a lot of people and its not something you can take away without employees seeing it as a pay cut.
So if my pay is being cut, and you are taking an extra 2 hours of my day in commute again, then I guess that becomes my reward for hard work?
To be fair the dynamics do change from business to business. My current one is a good example of making poor decisions with workforce and not expecting the blowback.
Okay. Neat. What does that have to do with a tantrum and going on unemployment over spite vs finding a new job?
I’m saying unemployment isn’t actually a risk. You just keep saying it is. Plenty of people ride dying companies into the dirt and move on, its not a crazy scenario to imagine.
Sure, work at shitty companies for low pay for the rest of your life 🤷♂️
Now you’re on about low pay, what are you even talking about? Changing companies is the best thing for increasing salary and you’re here acting like a child terrified of losing your job… have you ever even worked at a company on salary? You sound like you’re talking about something you are clueless about. Stop being so afraid, go change jobs.
Here they’re pushing the “must be within 60 miles from the office” trope; I bet they’d say to drive in if it’s after hours.
