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movq
www.uninformativ.de
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Back at the office. Apparently, Covid is over: Lots of people, most don’t wear a mask.

Also: Boom, I’m making overtime. 🤪 “Nah, alright, I’ll just quickly finish this up, before I hit the road for my 1h drive.”
movq
www.uninformativ.de
View Thread
Back at the office. Apparently, Covid is over: Lots of people, most don’t wear a mask.

Also: Boom, I’m making overtime. 🤪 “Nah, alright, I’ll just quickly finish this up, before I hit the road for my 1h drive.”
movq
www.uninformativ.de
View Thread
Back at the office. Apparently, Covid is over: Lots of people, most don’t wear a mask.

Also: Boom, I’m making overtime. 🤪 “Nah, alright, I’ll just quickly finish this up, before I hit the road for my 1h drive.”
lyse
lyse.isobeef.org
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@movq Oh no! Next week we'll have one day at the office for our first on-site sprint meeting. Then we also will see our new customer for the first time in real life. And one of our team mates. But I'm totally not looking forward to the long train ride at all. I'm already in a bad mood when I just think about it. :-( I also expect that not wearing masks and not keeping a safe distance will be an issue.

Coming into the office at most once a quarter would be fine with me, but I certainly don't need more than that. Just not worth the wasted time and risk of getting infected.
lyse
lyse.isobeef.org
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@movq Regarding overtime: My flextime account climbs and climbs, even from home. Location doesn't really make a difference. But I recall several occasions in the office when I missed to leave on time to catch my train. Then I had to stay and work for another hour and try again.
movq
www.uninformativ.de
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@lyse Is it just that one day or are you going back to the office regularly? By the way, does you office have windows that you can *open*? Many of our rooms don’t. 🥴

Offices were a necessity in the past, but we should get rid of them wherever we can … Especially the IT field. I only went there last week to work on a network switch, couldn’t be done remotely. (So I’m not back 100% and I hope that I can avoid that.)

As for your flextime account, that’s not a good sign. 😟 (Unless you thouroughly enjoy your work with all your heart, of course.) Is it at least paid good (or paid at all)? I used to do lots and lots of overtime, but this really wears you down over time and then the quality of your work drops to 0 …
movq
www.uninformativ.de
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@lyse Is it just that one day or are you going back to the office regularly? By the way, does you office have windows that you can *open*? Many of our rooms don’t. 🥴

Offices were a necessity in the past, but we should get rid of them wherever we can … Especially the IT field. I only went there last week to work on a network switch, couldn’t be done remotely. (So I’m not back 100% and I hope that I can avoid that.)

As for your flextime account, that’s not a good sign. 😟 (Unless you thouroughly enjoy your work with all your heart, of course.) Is it at least paid good (or paid at all)? I used to do lots and lots of overtime, but this really wears you down over time and then the quality of your work drops to 0 …
movq
www.uninformativ.de
View Thread
@lyse Is it just that one day or are you going back to the office regularly? By the way, does you office have windows that you can *open*? Many of our rooms don’t. 🥴

Offices were a necessity in the past, but we should get rid of them wherever we can … Especially the IT field. I only went there last week to work on a network switch, couldn’t be done remotely. (So I’m not back 100% and I hope that I can avoid that.)

As for your flextime account, that’s not a good sign. 😟 (Unless you thouroughly enjoy your work with all your heart, of course.) Is it at least paid good (or paid at all)? I used to do lots and lots of overtime, but this really wears you down over time and then the quality of your work drops to 0 …
lyse
lyse.isobeef.org
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@movq Just that one day for now. I hope that most of the time we'll continue working from home and meeting at the office will remain a very, very rare thing. Some of us have commutes of over an hour, so they naturally aren't keen on coming in neither. On the other hand, some wouldn't mind meeting in person more often. I'm just concerned that if we now meet on Wednesday, people think "oh, that was a really cool thing" (granted, which it is going to be, fully agree on that), however, then also come to the conclusion "let's do it more often".

Luckily, we have a works council agreement that the project teams themselves decide how they want to work. Not the management will order, but it's all in the hands of the individual teams (provided it works, but as past already told, it does). They will scout out if they want to and also can work from home or the office or what kind of mix they wanna do. Most will decide on some mix with probably largely from home I reckon. So basically, the complete spectrum of 0-100% office is possible. The team just has to agree on something. My goal is to bring this as close to 0% as possible. I believe that our work does not require any office presence at all.

Sure, there are some advantages in the office like quickly asking your workmate something, office grapevine, easily and naturally drawing something on a board by hand and things like that. But I think we have good enough technical solutions in place to work around that.

In our case the big overall project is spread all over the world. So even if you meet with your subproject locally in the office, meetings with other teams (which we have lots of) will always happen remotely anyways, so it's not a big win going to the office. You can just call them from home with less hazzle.

Yeah, all in all I like my job. Of course it could always be better, more efficient, smoother, more paid, what not, but it's mostly complaining about first world problems. And we always take time off in lieu. Just at the moment it's a bit stressful, so the hour counter goes a bit through the roof. Next month I'm planning on reducing.
lyse
lyse.isobeef.org
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@movq Regarding windows: I think, some could be opened, but not all of them. It's been too long since I was in the office, can't remember exactly. And I only was two and half months in that company when Covid struck and we were all sent home. I only remember hitting the light and shutter switches every morning when I was one of the first who arrived. The one bigger meeting room we used the most had definitely at least one window that could be opened. Probably more. In the open space office I think at least some into the patio were openable. Not sure about the ones pointing to the road. But most likely, too.

Now we changed office rooms in the meantime. Twice. Without being even in the office ever since. A moving company moved things around for all of us. So not enirely sure what the new rooms will be, but I assume they're equipped the same, just a different building section.
movq
www.uninformativ.de
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@lyse So then it’s the first meeting you guys have after a very long time? I bet you won’t get *anything* done, because everyone is so focused on socializing – that’s what happened to us. 😅 I wouldn’t be too worried about people wanting to do this every week. I think they’ll quickly realize how annoying and silly it is to be stuck in traffic.

Ah, it’s the same here, the teams decide how/where they want to work. This is really great and I hope this becomes the new standard in our field. You could easily take a job at a company at the other side of the country. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

People have to learn how to use a damn chat, instead of just coming to my desk or shouting across the room. I don’t know where this culture comes from 🤔, even though I did it myself in the past …
movq
www.uninformativ.de
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@lyse So then it’s the first meeting you guys have after a very long time? I bet you won’t get *anything* done, because everyone is so focused on socializing – that’s what happened to us. 😅 I wouldn’t be too worried about people wanting to do this every week. I think they’ll quickly realize how annoying and silly it is to be stuck in traffic.

Ah, it’s the same here, the teams decide how/where they want to work. This is really great and I hope this becomes the new standard in our field. You could easily take a job at a company at the other side of the country. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

People have to learn how to use a damn chat, instead of just coming to my desk or shouting across the room. I don’t know where this culture comes from 🤔, even though I did it myself in the past …
movq
www.uninformativ.de
View Thread
@lyse So then it’s the first meeting you guys have after a very long time? I bet you won’t get *anything* done, because everyone is so focused on socializing – that’s what happened to us. 😅 I wouldn’t be too worried about people wanting to do this every week. I think they’ll quickly realize how annoying and silly it is to be stuck in traffic.

Ah, it’s the same here, the teams decide how/where they want to work. This is really great and I hope this becomes the new standard in our field. You could easily take a job at a company at the other side of the country. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

People have to learn how to use a damn chat, instead of just coming to my desk or shouting across the room. I don’t know where this culture comes from 🤔, even though I did it myself in the past …
lyse
lyse.isobeef.org
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@movq Yep. I changed the project pretty much exactly one year ago and met my new work mates and customer only once in person a private beer garden get-together last summer. So next week will be my second time for real.

Hahaha, chances are that you're right. :-D Usually review and planning take about two hours, so if we plan like eight, we might be able to actually achieve something. I will report back. :-)

Yes, that's also the way I see how it should work. I'm very happy, that they made this arrangement. But the working council said, they had a look at looots of different agreements out there in the wild, but virtually nobody does it this way or not to this extreme without any hard limits. The management seems to always fear that they cannot hand power and control down to those, who do the actual work. I'm super happy that our bosses are that couragous. I reckon it will talk a lot of time to become the new standard. Talking to my friends, it's not even close to what we have here. Very sad.

Walking over to your work mate and quietly asking something is clearly the advanced technique. I fully second that. :-) That together with quickly yelling over the desk or even across the whole room is just what everybody was used to for decades, centuries or even millennia. And for new collegues it's the easiest thing, too. As a bonus the greenhorn gets extra introduction into the project via this "sidechannel". Observing how the existing work mates interact with each other is super helpful in getting into a new team. You just learn the mentalities of the individuals or team so much faster. It's also just a very natural thing, that you pick up a problem somebody is having and then you can quickly help out or do whatever.

With all this spontaneity mostly gone, the great benefit is of course that you can work much more concentrated on a subject. That's what I really, really enjoy. No more background noise, interruptions are greatly reduced. I'm much more efficient and focussed without all those many little distractions and mental context switches. And if something urgent comes up spontaneously, you can still call your workmates or use the chat for things of lesser importance. I reckon the stronger and getting-things-done people really benefit from that, but the new, weaker or introverted ones might suffer a bit more. But if you reflect on this, you can counteract.
movq
www.uninformativ.de
View Thread
@lyse

> As a bonus the greenhorn gets extra introduction into the project via this "sidechannel".

That’s a good point. 🤔 I tend to forget about newbies – our team rarely gets new additions and I, myself, haven’t been in that position for a decade. 😂

> you can work much more concentrated on a subject. That's what I really, really enjoy. No more background noise

Absolutely. I really love that. 😊 And it goes both ways: I like to walk around while thinking, which is hardly possible in an office. At home, nobody cares. So, not only does nobody interrupt me, *I* don’t interrupt people, either.

(It’s almost like the infamous Großraumbüro was the worst idea ever. 🤣)
movq
www.uninformativ.de
View Thread
@lyse

> As a bonus the greenhorn gets extra introduction into the project via this "sidechannel".

That’s a good point. 🤔 I tend to forget about newbies – our team rarely gets new additions and I, myself, haven’t been in that position for a decade. 😂

> you can work much more concentrated on a subject. That's what I really, really enjoy. No more background noise

Absolutely. I really love that. 😊 And it goes both ways: I like to walk around while thinking, which is hardly possible in an office. At home, nobody cares. So, not only does nobody interrupt me, *I* don’t interrupt people, either.

(It’s almost like the infamous Großraumbüro was the worst idea ever. 🤣)
movq
www.uninformativ.de
View Thread
@lyse

> As a bonus the greenhorn gets extra introduction into the project via this "sidechannel".

That’s a good point. 🤔 I tend to forget about newbies – our team rarely gets new additions and I, myself, haven’t been in that position for a decade. 😂

> you can work much more concentrated on a subject. That's what I really, really enjoy. No more background noise

Absolutely. I really love that. 😊 And it goes both ways: I like to walk around while thinking, which is hardly possible in an office. At home, nobody cares. So, not only does nobody interrupt me, *I* don’t interrupt people, either.

(It’s almost like the infamous Großraumbüro was the worst idea ever. 🤣)
lyse
lyse.isobeef.org
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@movq I have to watch out, that I'm not undermining my own agenda with all those pro office arguments. :-D

Haha, I just remember so well because I was a newbie not too long ago in my current project. And shortly after we got even more team mates. All remote of course. The first few days after I joined were quite tricky, but we all managed it very well I have to say.

Exactly, consideration is the keyword. Since that property seems to be on the decline everywhere anyways, the Großraumbüro should rapidly die out.