The policy is you can only work from home when it benefits the company, not you.
I'm learning that the hard way. Started working for this company 2 hours from home,because I could WFH 3 days a week. Now they want me to come in 4 days a week. So I'm looking for a new job now. Which is a shame, because I do like the job.
What does your contract say? With this back to work bullshit I made sure my contract explicitly said I was remote.
Doesn't mean they won't change their mind but maybe I'll get severance instead of fired for cause of they have a back to the office push.
As a middle manager in a corporate hellscape, one of my few joys in life is setting logic traps for HR and making them choose between admitting company policy is bullshit or directly instructing me to violate labor laws.
Doing the Lord’s work there, Sonny!
if it's the latter, just get it in writing.
That's the goal.
Theres something enormously satisfying about asking the question "And are you willing to give me that in writing?"
Then watching them squirm as something in their brain goes full Ackbar "ITS A TRAP!"
I always refused to put work apps on my personal phone because they would make you agree to some bullshit where they could remote access your phone or potentially wipe it. So I would refuse and say they needed to provide a company phone for me if it was that important. Most companies are either ok with this or provide a phone, except for one company. This was a software company, and literally everything else about this company was a unicorn of a job. But for some reason they wanted me to have slack on my phone and also wouldn't give me a company phone. So I dug up an old phone, reset it to factory settings, and added slack to that so I could say I did it. Then I put the phone away and they never asked about it again. So I really don't know what the point of that was 🤷
It's less cognitively taxing for me if you just comply with whatever I've decided
I really don't mind these days as long as they have a MDM so I can have it on a separate profile, but without that I'm totally with you.
I'm not allowed to work from home and it seriously pisses me off. Whenever I complain about this to my boss, she always gives me shit like "you're a school bus driver".
I am in a weird position, as a software developer, I work for a tiny company and they’re against work from home, but they’re absolutely amazing and accommodating in all other areas and I have no complaints.
So I had car issues and was able to work from home 3 days a week, but it still pisses me off that I have to go in those two days. They say it’s so we can communicate and ask for help, but mostly it’s a silent office and we can’t even wear headphones. Often I can go in and if I’m in a mood there is no communication all day long (I am the chatty one and will engage in debates a lot). Yet I’ve had to take a 3 hours public transport route to work (car issues) just to sit there and not talk.
I’m torn because they’re amazing in every other aspect and super understanding about my mental health issues and leaving early and making up time etc. we don’t have targets and are just trusted we will work hard, I struggle as I overthink and put a lot more pressure on myself than my employer does, but I can’t change the way my mind work.
People will look at one aspect and say that the job sucks. Truth is, there is no perfect job and only you can tell that it balances out. The way you talk about it really feels like a nice place to work, with the exception of the headphones thing, that is weird. And if you like to chat with coworkers a full remote Job may be kinda hell, it is really easy to feel isolated and not connect with people because it takes more effort like going to audio or video calls to hangout or having to chat over text more
Our boss was freaking out over people sometimes doing some private calls during work hours and at a certain point absolutely forbade it. So yeah, people would just end the call at 17:00 sharp and switch off the work phone. It took one week before that rule was rescinded.
This reminds me of a work-to-rule or a "White Strike." It turns out that every company, even those that supposedly operate off of "unskilled" labor, utterly rely on employees making a ton of judgment calls and often working outside their job description. When employees start working to the letter of their job description, the whole operation quickly grinds to a halt.
"Other duties as assigned" is a bitch.
This is when "could you please send that request on writing via e-mail" becomes really useful.
In all of my IT jobs I would have been fired if I had signed into work accounts on my personal phone. It's a pretty big security risk.
True, but in small companies it's not uncommon.
I was at a subsidiary of a very large company and had work slack, email, and all my code on my phone, without even the thing that lets them remote wipe your phone.
It has to do with culture and willingness to put in the effort by the security organization
Boss calls me (the sole on-site IT person) on a sickday and tells me something important broke and I need to come and fix it (45 minute bus ride one-way). I know exactly what broke and I tell her if she goes into my office and turn my computer on then I can remote in and fix it in literally 5 seconds. She nearly screams at me saying that my contract doesn't allow remote work and I don't remember what exactly was said after this point but it was something along the lines of:
"It won't be fixed for another 5 days then because I'm not coming in today (Thursday, and I don't work Fridays or Mondays)."
"Ok bye"
"bye"
Guess it wasn't important
You can always spot the ones who care about the power structures more than the purpose by stupid shit like this.
Doing home health was kinda instructive for me in this regard.
The only time you go to the office is to turn stuff in, do inservices/continuing education, or similar. But originally I would answer calls at weird hours because a patient would need coverage, otherwise they wouldn't be calling.
And then the management spent way too much money buying into some Disney corporate policy thing (literally, they paid money to Disney for the program) that changed a ton of rules in bullshit ways that made no sense for home health.
So, the next time they called, I didn't answer. Or the time after that, or the time after that. And, when you're one of three men working for a company that's partially reliant physical strength to be able to do the work needed for some patients, this alarmed my supervisor. She requested a meeting, and I went in. Mandatory meetings were paid though!
At the meeting, it was expressed that answering calls was part of my job. So I asked id I was being paid to sit at home and wait for calls. No, I wasn't "on call". So, you want me on call? No, just to answer when we call you. That's being on call, and we're supposed to get paid for that. No, this is different, we just want you to be available when someone calls out for a difficult patient. Soooo, you want me on call.
This went in circles for a while before I switched gears and directly said that answering calls when not on duty was not in place when I was hired, and that the employee handbook specified that being on call was considered a shift, and would be paid as such, and that maybe I should have been on call any of the dozens of times I did wake my ass up from sleep after workout two or three jobs in the first place, and that I never got paid a dime for doing so, so that was the end of it for me.
The response was that they couldn't stay operating if they paid everyone for being on call instead of us "supporting the company". My response was that maybe they could have if they hadn't shelled out for the Disney crap, or if the previous administrator hadn't been screwing around and embezzling, and that maybe it was time the company supported us.
Not surprisingly, I was one of several employees "let go to streamline services" a few weeks later, right before the company folded entirely.
So, you don't even have to have an office job to get treated like shit! Isn't that a relief? Isn't it?
A previous job of mine wanted people in my team to volunteer for being on call overnight for a week at a time.
No-one did, so they forced us. I emailed all managers involved including HR I said that I would like to opt-out for various reasons like family, mental and physical health, and also that the pay was in no way adequate for what they wanted. Again they pushed, so I replied with I'll do it but would be unavailable most afternoons and evenings with my kids and things they have on. That I also won't be able to answer after going to sleep because I take my mental health very seriously and need quality sleep to function.
So the first night I slept peacefully as I normally do as I have my phone set to go to DND automatically. I got called in because I didn't answer a call that came in last night, I asked when it was, about midnight, and said well that's because I was asleep.
Go to the next 2 mangers up, say the same thing and they say that I need to answer. I explain the email stating that I would be unable to answer calls at many times including when asleep and how no-one replied with that being a problem. One of the managers was like, wait up, you flagged this; yup; can you send me the email chain; yup. Got removed and told I wouldn't need to worry about doing it anymore.
It found a new job shortly after that.
...you shouldn't have to respond in home hours regardless. Any time you spend on work during your life outside of contract is them stealing your labour.
Many IT jobs require an on-call rotation. Even when not on call, an SME can be called in an emergency. Time spent on call-outs typically either pays overtime or gives comp time. The infrastructure has to keep running, that's just how it is.
Keep telling the DBAs that my company outsourced a big chunk of their tech stack to that its against company policy to work all the way on the other side of the planet, but they refuse to show up to the office.
Incoming employment terms amendment:
You can work from home but only to answer us when we contact you. You must answer our contact and must report to the location if requested. If you can do something cheaper (for us the company) and faster (for us the company) then that is the only time you may perform a work duty at home.
It's EU law that if you have to be standby to pick up the phone and go on location at a moment's notice, those are working hours and need to be paid in full. Most companies are pretty careful to not put it anywhere in the contracts or house rules that you have to be on stand-by, but just verbally keep pushing for it. If they keep pushing, push back with asking for the written rules.
That sounds like something a functioning government would do.
In America, we get the "privilege" of At-Will employment.
I can't understand how Americans cope with so much freedom.
We don't have time to think about it much.
Excuse me, I need to spend the next 2 hours trying to get my insurance company to pay for my medical care.
You must answer our contact
"I cannot answer the company contact after hours because for every call I get after hours that isn't a company contact, following an order from work to monitor those on the chance of a company contact itself represents 'working from home' which the company forbids. I cannot violate the previously stated company policy."
I'm on hybrid, but my entire team is all over the world, so I'm just as alone in the office as at home. The only difference is that in the office I'm bound by the train schedule, so I can't take out of hours calls. My coworkers and manager keep petitioning HR to let me work from home full time.
Which is weird cause the savings in not comming in to center is a win for everyone.
Should be the standard anyway. Reading email and texts from work, or responding to calls, is work. Unless your contact specifies on-call hours, you should ignore your boss outside of working hours. If they really want you to respond they can pay you overtime.
"No, not like that!"
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