I really believe working from home isn't suited for everyone. I find it hard to focus and with limited space in my flat, I don't really enjoy working from home. Whenever I have appointments or different runs. What companies to be is flexible with allowing ad-hoc requests to work from home.
I really believe working from home isn't suited for everyone. I find it hard to focus and with limited space in my flat, I don't really enjoy working from home. Whenever I have appointments or different runs. What companies to be is flexible with allowing ad-hoc requests to work from home.
Big Co decided to join the telecommuting craze to compete with scrappy startups. Employees seemed to like the idea of not spending hours in a car generating pollution each week so they went for it.
Then the trouble started. Instead of facing a regular 8 hour day like normal office workers, they faced round the clock emails and calls from work. Their privilege, it turned out, was more of a curse. Server hiccup at 2am? Fix it from home, sleepy head.
Not only were they worked round the clock with no overtime pay, but the lack of face time with management had a knock on effect. It turns out those who stayed at the office got to be better friends with management. Got better perks. More raises.
While those telecommuters... they received suspicion. Disdain. "What do they even do all day? Why am I paying them? Sure, the servers keep humming, but that's just normal behavior. They must be taking advantage of my good will!! Lazy telecommuters!"
Secretly though, management harbored impostor syndrome. If telecommuters can work from home and can manage themselves... who is there left to manage? Gulp. What happens to my job?!
In the end, the paranoia of management led them to kill the program. The work was done just the same, but at higher cost and to more dramatic effect. Management watched the work happening again, justifying their own existence. But since everyone had been set up to work from home already, workers could still be expected to put in off hours too! It was truly the best of both worlds now.
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[ 138 ms ] story [ 494 ms ] threadBig Co decided to join the telecommuting craze to compete with scrappy startups. Employees seemed to like the idea of not spending hours in a car generating pollution each week so they went for it.
Then the trouble started. Instead of facing a regular 8 hour day like normal office workers, they faced round the clock emails and calls from work. Their privilege, it turned out, was more of a curse. Server hiccup at 2am? Fix it from home, sleepy head.
Not only were they worked round the clock with no overtime pay, but the lack of face time with management had a knock on effect. It turns out those who stayed at the office got to be better friends with management. Got better perks. More raises.
While those telecommuters... they received suspicion. Disdain. "What do they even do all day? Why am I paying them? Sure, the servers keep humming, but that's just normal behavior. They must be taking advantage of my good will!! Lazy telecommuters!"
Secretly though, management harbored impostor syndrome. If telecommuters can work from home and can manage themselves... who is there left to manage? Gulp. What happens to my job?!
In the end, the paranoia of management led them to kill the program. The work was done just the same, but at higher cost and to more dramatic effect. Management watched the work happening again, justifying their own existence. But since everyone had been set up to work from home already, workers could still be expected to put in off hours too! It was truly the best of both worlds now.