Working in an office

[Sugar Ape]

18 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

I think of all the people I’ve learnt from over the years, advice I’ve been given, tips before meetings, advice after meetings, chatting to people on the ‘other’ side after we’d done that just won’t happen if everyone just clicks ‘Leave’ after a meeting. Just creating a problem for the future.  

Loads of old people (sorry) who are set in their ways think it’ll go back to the way it was and they are so important that people can’t work without being around them hanging off their every word. 
 

I’ve been trained on three different work streams during this, all over Skype, and haven’t had a problem picking it up and doing the work. No one else who has been trained on them has had a problem either. 
 

I think it is very overstated all this ‘missing out on water cooler’ chat that Johnson and Sunak go on about. Maybe for specific businesses it’s true but I just have a caseload I manage every day on my own, I’m not sitting there like I’m in Glengarry Glen Ross writing shit on a blackboard and throwing out lectures. 

 

There are positives and negatives about everything and this is no different. To be honest my experience of meetings in person is that they drag on about 25 minutes longer than they should because there are always a couple of boring cunts chatting irrelevant shit after the purpose of the meeting is resolved. Saving that time more than makes up for not receiving all the knowledge and ideas that people are supposedly giving me as we walk back to our desks. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

50 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

One of the unintended consequences of everyone working from home is the fact you can’t wander over and ask someone a question, then ask the same question to someone else and then a person overhearing your question gets involved and helps out.  

I miss that sort of thing.  I'd pop down to have a quick word with someone and then spot someone else, which would remind me of something I needed to speak to that person about. More importantly, I could see whether or not they're mad busy, so I could judge whether or not to interrupt them. That's all gone for good now.

[Sugar Ape]

6 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Who’s the person you’ve learnt from the

most in your career? Would that have happened if you’d both WFH?  

I think one of the problems is seeing every sector that works in offices as all doing the same job. 
 

I work for the government, I don’t have some Obi-Wan Kenobi style mentor sitting on shoulder every day offering me sage advice. I get trained on something then left to it and 95% of all talk I hear in the office after that is shit about reality TV and the soaps. 
 

If you work in an investment bank or something then obviously that’s a different story but for a lot of people they’re not sitting there bouncing ideas off each other all day, they just have their head down doing a set task that doesn’t change day to day. 

[Rico1304]

3 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

Loads of old people (sorry) who are set in their ways think it’ll go back to the way it was and they are so important that people can’t work without being around them hanging off their every word. 
 

I’ve been trained on three different work streams during this, all over Skype, and haven’t had a problem picking it up and doing the work. No one else who has been trained on them has had a problem either. 
 

I think it is very overstated all this ‘missing out on water cooler’ chat that Johnson and Sunak go on about. Maybe for specific businesses it’s true but I just have a caseload I manage every day on my own, I’m not sitting there like I’m in Glengarry Glen Ross writing shit on a blackboard and throwing out lectures. 

 

There are positives and negatives about everything and this is no different. To be honest my experience of meetings in person is that they drag on about 25 minutes longer than they should because there are always a couple of boring cunts chatting irrelevant shit after the purpose of the meeting is resolved. Saving that time more than makes up for not receiving all the knowledge and ideas that people are supposedly giving me as we walk back to our desks. 

No offence taken. I can hardly claim not to be old.  
 

Meeting efficiency can always be improved, but missing out on being in an office environment IMO will be an issue.  You’ll miss out on discretionary effort too. But we’ll see. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

The big determinant of whether we return to full-time office work will be accommodation costs. Employers are already seeing that by being "flexible" they can operate with a maximum of, say, 1/4 of their staff actually in the office at any time and that allows them to downsize to premises 1/4 the size. That's going to have massive repercussions on the economy, on transport, on town planning, etc.

[Rico1304]

6 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

I think one of the problems is seeing every sector that works in offices as all doing the same job. 
 

I work for the government, I don’t have some Obi-Wan Kenobi style mentor sitting on shoulder every day offering me sage advice. I get trained on something then left to it and 95% of all talk I hear in the office after that is shit about reality TV and the soaps. 
 

If you work in an investment bank or something then obviously that’s a different story but for a lot of people they’re not sitting there bouncing ideas off each other all day, they just have their head down doing a set task that doesn’t change day to day. 

Imagine meeting someone and them telling you that they’ve noticed your skills and offering you a job somewhere else. 
 

Edit:  that’s exactly what happened to me. 

[Rico1304]

10 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

I miss that sort of thing.  I'd pop down to have a quick word with someone and then spot someone else, which would remind me of something I needed to speak to that person about. More importantly, I could see whether or not they're mad busy, so I could judge whether or not to interrupt them. That's all gone for good now.

Building relationships, getting people to do stuff for you first rather than sticking on a list and them getting to your ‘job’ in turn. 
 

If your job is transactional then I can almost get it, ‘press button A, press button B, press return’ stay at home. But if you want more, maybe suggest that pressing button C means the process is better then maybe an office is better. 

[Rico1304]

13 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

I think one of the problems is seeing every sector that works in offices as all doing the same job. 
 

I work for the government, I don’t have some Obi-Wan Kenobi style mentor sitting on shoulder every day offering me sage advice. I get trained on something then left to it and 95% of all talk I hear in the office after that is shit about reality TV and the soaps. 
 

If you work in an investment bank or something then obviously that’s a different story but for a lot of people they’re not sitting there bouncing ideas off each other all day, they just have their head down doing a set task that doesn’t change day to day. 

Do you want to get promoted? Are you happy doing what you do forever? 
 

Obi etc was a bit shit. I’m talking about someone saying ‘hey rapey, you’re good at this have you thought about doing this’ or ‘ there’s a job over here, have you considered this?’ 

[3 Stacks]

37 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Do people advocating WFH think that getting a remote degree is the same?  

Working your day job and getting a degree are not the same things. An equivalent example is job training and getting a degree because you're learning new things. That I agree, should ideally be done in person, if possible. 

[Sugar Ape]

9 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Imagine meeting someone and them telling you that they’ve noticed your skills and offering you a job somewhere else. 
 

Edit:  that’s exactly what happened to me. 

Maybe in the energy sector that is something to consider. Or for example in place like Goldman Sachs who have said they are getting everyone back in the office but some other investment banks (JP Morgan maybe) have said they’ll let staff work at home. It’s going to differ sector by sector and even within sectors it will differ by employee. 
 

To answer your question about my own job prospects it doesn’t work like that where I work. I’m not going to be headhunted by the DWP or the Passport Office. Jobs for the Home Office come out and I can apply for any of them in the next grade up. 
 

I’m sure SD will confirm that going for a promotion in the civil service is an absolute joke anyway. They have almost no interest in your qualifications or past achievements and the whole thing hinges on how good you are at blagging a 20 minute interview. 

[Rico1304]

4 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Working your day job and getting a degree are not the same things. An equivalent example is job training and getting a degree because you're learning new things. That I agree, should ideally be done in person, if possible. 

He said he got training then did a job. 

[Rico1304]

1 minute ago, Sugar Ape said:

Maybe in the energy sector that is something to consider. Or for example in place like Goldman Sachs who have said they are getting everyone back in the office but some other investment banks (JP Morgan maybe) have said they’ll let staff work at home. It’s going to differ sector by sector and even within sectors it will differ by employee. 
 

To answer your question about my own job prospects it doesn’t work like that where I work. I’m not going to be headhunted by the DWP or the Passport Office. Jobs for the Home Office come out and I can apply for any of them in the next grade up. 
 

I’m sure SD will confirm that going for a promotion in the civil service is an absolute joke anyway. They have almost no interest in your qualifications or past achievements and the whole thing hinges on how good you are at blagging a 20 minute interview. 

So that’s not changed because of Covid. 

[mattyq]

When everything calms down it looks like I'm going to be in the office 3 days a week which sounds great to me

I'm pretty new in the job so am looking forward to meeting everybody in the flesh and the office is in central Oxford so that'll be cool. Pain in the arse to get too, though

[Rico1304]

11 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

Maybe in the energy sector that is something to consider. Or for example in place like Goldman Sachs who have said they are getting everyone back in the office but some other investment banks (JP Morgan maybe) have said they’ll let staff work at home. It’s going to differ sector by sector and even within sectors it will differ by employee. 
 

To answer your question about my own job prospects it doesn’t work like that where I work. I’m not going to be headhunted by the DWP or the Passport Office. Jobs for the Home Office come out and I can apply for any of them in the next grade up. 
 

I’m sure SD will confirm that going for a promotion in the civil service is an absolute joke anyway. They have almost no interest in your qualifications or past achievements and the whole thing hinges on how good you are at blagging a 20 minute interview. 

Fair enough.

 

Good luck. 

[tokyojoe]

50 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

And think of all the shags you’ll miss out on.  Fucking hell I was like a virus through at least 3 call centres. 

This. I've worked with a lot of very fit birds.

[Strontium]

15 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

I’m sure SD will confirm that going for a promotion in the civil service is an absolute joke anyway. They have almost no interest in your qualifications or past achievements and the whole thing hinges on how good you are at blagging a 20 minute interview. 

 

Oh yeah, this is totally the case. You have competencies - or incompetencies, as I like to call them - which are marked 0, 1, 2 or 3, where 2 is needed to pass, but it's totally arbitrary, as I got 2s and 3s one time, then used exactly the same competencies for another application, and got 0s and 1s. You might as well roll a fucking dice.

 

Now in order to get a 2 or 3, it's not enough to say (eg) "I do this shit day in, day out, with an unprecedented level of accuracy and output", because simply doing your job brilliantly isn't what they want. No, you need to show an occasion where you want beyond your job, because what they're apparently looking for is some maverick who goes off the reservation. But everyone just makes shit up anyway, so it's utterly worthless.

 

Qualifications aren't worth a damn. My first team, all bar one of us was a graduate. Guess who was the first to get promoted? And she's still about three grades senior to me now.

 

In any case, if you're any good at your job, managers won't want to lose you. I was knocked back from promotion like four times, even though I had been working at that grade for about 2 years on temporary promotion and putting up the best numbers on the team, and every time I was interviewed by managers from my area. The first time I was interviewed by managers outside my area, I got a promotion. But the fuckers still made me work out my full notice period even though other people were allowed to move instantly on promotion, so I missed out on X number of weeks of higher pay.

[Rico1304]

44 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Working your day job and getting a degree are not the same things. An equivalent example is job training and getting a degree because you're learning new things. That I agree, should ideally be done in person, if possible. 

So you stop learning? 

[Rico1304]

5 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

Oh yeah, this is totally the case. You have competencies - or incompetencies, as I like to call them - which are marked 0, 1, 2 or 3, where 2 is needed to pass, but it's totally arbitrary, as I got 2s and 3s one time, then used exactly the same competencies for another application, and got 0s and 1s. You might as well roll a fucking dice.

 

Now in order to get a 2 or 3, it's not enough to say (eg) "I do this shit day in, day out, with an unprecedented level of accuracy and output", because simply doing your job brilliantly isn't what they want. No, you need to show an occasion where you want beyond your job, because what they're apparently looking for is some maverick who goes off the reservation. But everyone just makes shit up anyway, so it's utterly worthless.

 

Qualifications aren't worth a damn. My first team, all bar one of us was a graduate. Guess who was the first to get promoted? And she's still about three grades senior to me now.

 

In any case, if you're any good at your job, managers won't want to lose you. I was knocked back from promotion like four times, even though I had been working at that grade for about 2 years on temporary promotion and putting up the best numbers on the team, and every time I was interviewed by managers from my area. The first time I was interviewed by managers outside my area, I got a promotion. But the fuckers still made me work out my full notice period even though other people were allowed to move instantly on promotion, so I missed out on X number of weeks of higher pay.

Sounds shite. 
 

But without being a twat have you applied outside the CS? 

[Strontium]

2 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Sounds shite. 
 

But without being a twat have you applied outside the CS? 

 

There's not much non-specialist stuff other than government and retail jobs up here. Plus it is dead easy and super cushy, where else can I stroll into the office whenever I feel like it and get six and a half weeks of leave a year.

[3 Stacks]

10 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

So you stop learning? 

No, you can always do more training. I just thought comparing working from home with getting an online degree made no sense.

[Bob]

In my job, I manage a small team of which none of my team members work in the same office as me, and I’m in a division of which nobody else in my division is based on my office, so working remotely has no negative baring on me or on how my team is working, other than the challenges sometimes associated with working from home - internet outages, no printer, etc.

 

in the past 4 months I’ve been flat out developing new services and working mainly with 4 other colleagues on it, and being at home has been perfect for it as we’d not be in the same office anyway so the collaboration we’ve been able to have over teams as we bounce ideas off each other and work through development ideas would’ve been a real distraction to people in the normal office.
 

that said, I miss being in and will defo be going back in for a couple of days a week when we start to move back in again.

 

and I miss meeting clients, even though I’m antisocial and terrible at networking.

[Paulie Dangerously]

7 hours ago, Rico1304 said:

Do you want to get promoted? Are you happy doing what you do forever? 
 

Obi etc was a bit shit. I’m talking about someone saying ‘hey rapey, you’re good at this have you thought about doing this’ or ‘ there’s a job over here, have you considered this?’ 

Pre-teaching this happened to me a few times. I think offices are gone forever on the whole and it will result in people staying in entry level jobs for a lot longer. 

[Rico1304]

8 minutes ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

Pre-teaching this happened to me a few times. I think offices are gone forever on the whole and it will result in people staying in entry level jobs for a lot longer. 

I’ve worked in Windsor, Staines, Edinburgh,

Leeds, Manchester and as a result met loads of different people and truly ugly women. I’ve got jobs because I can pretend to be nice and ultimately I’ve done ok out of it.  If I was a square on a zoom meeting I don’t think I’d be festering pustule I am today.  Being willing to move house or commute for 2 hours a day does indicate a level of commitment. 

[Rico1304]

7 hours ago, Sugar Ape said:

Maybe in the energy sector that is something to consider. Or for example in place like Goldman Sachs who have said they are getting everyone back in the office but some other investment banks (JP Morgan maybe) have said they’ll let staff work at home. It’s going to differ sector by sector and even within sectors it will differ by employee. 
 

To answer your question about my own job prospects it doesn’t work like that where I work. I’m not going to be headhunted by the DWP or the Passport Office. Jobs for the Home Office come out and I can apply for any of them in the next grade up. 
 

I’m sure SD will confirm that going for a promotion in the civil service is an absolute joke anyway. They have almost no interest in your qualifications or past achievements and the whole thing hinges on how good you are at blagging a 20 minute interview. 

I will say that one of my closest mates is quite senior in the civil service. He’s demonstrated his commitment to the cause by moving to Edinburgh, Portsmouth, Germany and the Falklands. Would he be where he is now if he was a square on zoom?  

[Sugar Ape]

12 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

I will say that one of my closest mates is quite senior in the civil service. He’s demonstrated his commitment to the cause by moving to Edinburgh, Portsmouth, Germany and the Falklands. Would he be where he is now if he was a square on zoom?  

If everyone else was a square on zoom then why not? What are they going to do, not promote anyone ever? Maybe in some places it will increase people getting promoted based on their actual work and not if their face fits in. Or maybe people won’t have to move to other cities for a job that can now be done at home, there will be qualified people up and down the country who won’t apply for jobs because they can’t move due to family or caring commitments. 

 

I doubt many places will be 100% wfh anyway. Most will be a hybrid so people who wish to go in more often than being at home because they think it favours them getting a promotion can do so.