How Will Working Life Change Post Covid-19?
Millions of people around the world are working from home. Many for the first time ever.
As it turns out, working from home is both pleasant and productive for most people. No more monster commutes, no more unnecessary meetings, no more inane water-cooler chit chat.
Even better, many people are discovering they can do their jobs in about half the time.
Also, many companies are realizing they can operate perfectly well with a smaller office footprint. The opportunity to save a ton of overhead just got real! Rent, office equipment, electricity, etc. Companies have discovered they can 'outsource' those costs to their employees and still run the business.
Moreover, many employers and employees are discovering they are willing to accept less pay for the work-from-home lifestyle.
It has been more than a month for many people and companies, and attitudes are shifting. Mine certainly has. But don't take my word for it.
Here are some thoughts from fellow salary-monkeys from across Reddit:
u/ElDiario
I had three days working at home by myself before they cancelled school and it was GLORIOUS. I worked out, watched Netflix, did random tasks around the house that needed to be done and still managed the same workload as I did while I was in the office. I never want to go back.
u/octopuskate
I told my boss she's never going to see me again.
Five days from home is absolute bliss for me. Sure, I'll come in if there's a pressing need for an in-person meeting, but otherwise there's no way I'm getting dragged back into that office.
u/Chanters_eh
I’m going to make sure that I never put as much of myself and my life into my job again. This experience has been a massive eye opener to me.
After a couple of days working from home, I realized that my whole life revolves around my job. Obviously I need a paycheque but what I don’t need is an unnecessary, stressful commute. I don’t need to bust my ass to make up for incompetent/unwilling coworkers...not my problem, my manager’s problem. Also it’s times like this where you start to assess why your uneducated, gossipy manager who has zero work ethic or brain capacity is sitting in the salary they are. Another thing I will not be partaking in is hanging out with my colleagues after work . I’ve only done it in the past to ‘stay in the loop’ and to keep in with the ‘cool gang.’ The cool gang can now kiss my ass because they’re full of verbal diarrhea and, like my manager, only got to their position through politics and certainly not based on merit. I have to admit that I’m actually enjoying watching them struggle with this crisis. I can only hope the stress they’re under is at least a fraction of the stress that I’ve been under for the last few years from working for clowns playing at being professionals. From now on, I do what is commensurate with my paycheque and not one thing more. My employer wants me to do additional work per uze? Sure, how much will I get paid? Not in the budget? Then no can do. I'm no longer taking on additional work to keep bad employees in their overpaid positions. I’m actually hoping for a lay-off to force me into finding another job. I realize now how little I need to keep happy and am willing to take a pay cut for a new position. I could give zero hoots about what my job title is going forward because it’s all meaningless bs.
u/kozmos_cat
in my experience I just noticed how everyone pretended to work most of the time in the office and things can be done way quicker. However, you have to kill time in the office so you stretch things, so it looks like you are “working”.
I am doing the exact same amount of work, the only difference is that nobody is bugging me with useless questions, asking me for help to install something in their computer (I am not IT, I am just computer savy and my coworkers know it. They ask me all the time to help them in nonsense that can be easily get resolved with a google search).
I think all that plus casual chatter will take around 2 hours of my day. Add to that pointless meetings that could have been emails and those are 3 or 4 hours of my work day gone. Now I just work for 5 hours, do the same work and so far nobody is complaining.
I do have to say that when there are deadlines and important work I sometimes work past 10pm, but that might happen twice in a month so I don’t really care.
I think work should be paid by project and not by hours. Like let say you have to work a maximum of 8h a day unless is urgent and you have to do overtime. But if you finish something in 5h you are allowed to go home with no consequences as your job for today is done.
Long story short, I used to feel bad that I didn’t work my ass off in the office sometimes, or even when the quarantine started, then I noticed nobody gives a crap and everything is still done on time even if it took me 3h to do instead of 8h.
u/ineedoutnow1
Surprisingly, going to stay in more. I am very introverted yet I never sat still. I was always out hanging out with friends and family, buying lunches, dinners, going to bars, going for walks. I've realized that relaxing and watching tv and cooking and staying very on top of cleaning helps me recharge better than being out all the time. I was so drained.
Hoping to work from home more too, my commute was 2-2.5 hours of my day and the extra time will help me do things like shop and cook instead of always buying food.
I was never a big spender but I also plan to spend less money. Maybe have friends over for food and drinks instead of spending a lot of money on meh service.