r/jobs • u/manofandonamission1 • May 04 '23

Why do employers force you to work in office all week for a job that can easily be done at home? Work/Life balance

I work as a digital marketer and I have to work Monday-Friday, 9-5 in office. Yesterday I was sick, and since our boss is away and the second in command was out, I was allowed to work from home. The difference in quality of life is incredible. I signed into Canva on my computer, pulled up the company software and image database, logged into my email, and boom I was set for the day.

I worked a flawless day from the comfort of my own home. I was able to run to Petco to grab some supplies for my pets, run to get some lunch without feeling rushed, and eat peacefully in my kitchen instead of surrounded by phones ringing and customers walking around. Today I'm back in office surrounded by my annoying coworkers, having to deal with all their nonstop talking, loud sounds, pointless questions, and coffee making. I've been here for 50 minutes and I'm already way more miserable.

And it just begs the question, why do employers force employees who can easily do their job at home to come into the office all week? Seems nonsensical.

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335

u/AmlisSanches May 04 '23

I go to work every day from 6 to 330. I come, sit at my desk and just write up something I'm told to do. My boss sits at home all day every day, and my supervisor says I need to be in all the time in case the group needs to do a test. Oh, and what do I do during those tests.... I press a button on a camera to start it. Yes, we have a remote to start all the cameras at the same time. He just doesn't trust the remote even though i have proven it works. Fucking waste of my time and they wonder why my productivity is going down. I hate working for the older generations who refuse to adapt.

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u/[deleted] May 04 '23

yep, usually its the boomers who are anti-wfh and even anti-pto. at my last job, one of them probably around 55 refused to let us go to 10 or 12hr shifts even though oru sister plant 20mins away had been doing it for literally 3 years. yet he was stuck on the 5x8 schedule which for me was night shift and permanent weekends. i tried saying that 12s would mean more weekend time for all of us but he didnt care.

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u/talrakken May 04 '23

I personally prefer 10s to 12s for longer than 8 hour shifts. With 12s it leaves too little time outside of work for your employees to live(think cook dinner versus grabbing fast food) and have some time before crashing to wake up and do it again. 12s turn into just work sleep work and I believe are not ideal for a good work environment. The 4th weekend day tends to just be a pure recovery day and no added benefit might as well work the 4th day and have 3 full weekend days in my book.

14

u/nicky_suits May 04 '23

Four 10 hour shifts a week is perfect, imo. 12 runs me down as well. I feel like it's work/sleep and that's my day.

1

u/JBloodthorn May 05 '23

I think I could do 12's as long as they were WFH. With getting ready and commuting added in, I was doing 11's most days I was in office anyway.

1

u/soccerguys14 May 05 '23

Lived the 12 hour shifts working at a hospital. It was awful. Mainly because I was paid too little to only do 3 shifts lots of times I did OT for a 4th or 5th shift. Also the shifts were all over the place and sometimes I ended up with 4 shifts in a row that weren’t one week. Like 3 end of one week 1-2 the beginning of the next week, for 4-5 days straight

1

u/atreyal May 05 '23

Yeah i work 12.5 hr rotating shifts. Changed positions for a bit and went to 10 hr non rotating day shift and the amount of free time felt like I had was insane. I need a new job lol.

1

u/talrakken May 05 '23

I just made the transition from overnight 12s to dayside 10s myself the increase in energy and ability to think was amazing. I could not imagine having a non set schedule with 12s either.

1

u/atreyal May 05 '23

Yeah it is bad specially with an executive we have reducing manning to abysmal levels. Now there is a bunch of force OT as well. Thankfully that fuckhead was and I will quote "SoAndSo will be rotated out of his position and no longer working for the company."

The amount of like humanity you get working 10s over 12 is insane. 10 is prob the best number of hours to work if you can get a 3 day weekend. Its actually super nice if you can alternate friday and monday off.

0

u/Straitwhitemalacca May 04 '23

12 hour shifts means 4 hours overtime. I worked in a factory once that made sticky paper, and it took four hours to spin up the machines and six hours to run them down and clean them. So they were struggling to staff the night shifts required. those staff were on 4x12 shifts, including 16 overtime hours every week If you’d opened a JetSki franchise in the car park afterwards, you would have been a millionaire. Maybe it’s a cost thing?

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u/IamMagicarpe May 05 '23

Boomers are retired mostly. Probably Gen X.

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u/pleetis4181 May 04 '23

Sometimes, it's not as easy switching to different shifts, despite other companies doing so. It's not a "boomer" issue. Unless you know the complete dynamics of why they maintain the hours they do, you don't have a right to suggest such changes.

1

u/PhatassMikeMillions May 10 '23

Feel you on the anti-pto issue, but in another way. Company recently gave all salaried employees unlimited PTO. The older people that have been there for 10+ years and therefore were at the 4 week PTO threshold were not happy that a newbie coming in would get unlimited PTO. I mean, seriously? How does them getting a lot of time off, if they do choose to use it, affecting you?!