Nothing is more depressing
when I get home I want to be in my safe space. Safe from fookin’ WORK.
one of the great things about being where I am is that so far there hasn’t been any edict for the private sector to wfh
fourth wave? In the ozz every day m88s
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I do too, Laz.
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I miss the camaraderie, the physical distance.
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Yeah
For me it’s more about how I feel about home than how I feel about the office, but yeah.
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I like that there’s no commute at the end. Or the start. fook commuting.
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I agree with that as well Laz.
I liked my commute. For the last two years, it was just a short stroll to Knightsbridge, but even going into the City is just 20 mins on the tube.
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I'm with Jonatton. The more this goes the less inclined I am to ever get on a rush hour Tube again. Used to think I needed the journey to unwind but there are other better ways to do that.
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The tube is disgusting. The train isn’t much better and costs a fortune.
all academic now ofc, yesterday’s problem
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I like my commute.
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If I were in London I wouldn’t mind dispensing with the train ride a couple of days a week but I’d go work in the pub or coffee shop.
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back to one day in one day off for me. Would prefer 3 weeks in 3 weeks off like rig workers tbh.
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Jonathon, when covid’s completely over (March) it’ll be hard back to the ozz for you sunny Jim
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Agree. I did enjoy working from home during lockdown, the novelty of it, bike rides in the woods, jacuzzi lunches, poolside Teams calls.
But 4 weeks was enough for me.
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" poolside Teams calls".
Nice shoehorned humblebrag here.
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Lol @ offices
Can you fax me that in a memo?
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Would be reasonably surprising if the office is still there by then - or if it is it’ll be a w**ky ‘book a desk, don’t come in unless you really have to’ type affair
Overheads m7
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Nah m8
Mass wfh is over before it began
comoanies like offices because offices make them look and feel important
overheads? Nobody cares
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‘overheads? Nobody cares‘
heh
Not just the rent and utilities but all those sexual harassment claims thanks to Bournemouth and chums. All a thing of the past.
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Never gonna happen m88
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laz, our place has already said there will be 50% seating capacity in the future regardless of covid and you will only be able to come into the office 2 days a week without good reason so your idea that everything is going back as it was is simply factually incorrect. It may for some, but certainly not all. I don't think I know anyone office based who envisages going back to 5 days a week in the office permanently in the future.
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They will reverse it
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What Guy said. We've been told we'll never to back to being in the office all day every day.
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I live at work now. Please somebody kill me.
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I feel you OD. It’s not wfh but law - live at work
At the office you don’t have to be the office cleaner as well all day. Lunch is enjoyed with friends or colleagues or a spot of shopping / exercise. It doesn’t affect you if you didn’t make the bed or clear the dining table and get the wash on / empty the dishwasher.
also my commute is 45 mins per day where I am not contactable and can only : read Elle decor or my book and it’s bloody lovely
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I have been flexi for past 11 years. Will do 2 days per week in the office
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Working from home has not been a major botheration as I was already doing it one or two days a week.
I miss big printers/scanners and I did enjoy the ‘enforced’ reading time on the way in and out, whereas now I actively have to make the time to read rather than it occurring by default.
Also it is so much easier to get a junior to bring you the work and you can then just go through it with them.
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I'm uncontactable for 16 hours a day as once work is done I don't go near my work mobile until I start work again in the morning which is the same as when I was in the office as my mobile was usually in a desk drawer with a flat battery. So far nobody has died for not being able to get hold of me at 7pm.
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p.s. "‘overheads? Nobody cares"
I can see that laz is going to be on the receiving end of some brutal metaphorical wedgies in the bogs from the lads on the finance committee at the next partners awayday if he attempts to raise this as a point.
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I can't wait for colleagues to stop scheduling internal calls for 9pm in the evening because they have f*ck all else to do with their empty lives. As it was before, 1930 - go home and don't speak to anyone about work in the evening unless there is something urgent on.
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I reckon 3 or 4 days in and 1 or 2 at home would be ideal. A 4 day working week would be nice.
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Mdt103, so are people working longer hours now? Or is that just because of all the inefficiency that working from home brings with it?
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I'm more efficient courtesy of not having a selection of pointless internal meetings for starters.
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i hate wfh, feel much more 'in control' in the office. Not sure if just psychological but if i finish a piece of work in office i can move straight on to next, if WFH i cant
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"1930 - go home and don't speak to anyone about work in the evening unless there is something urgent on."
You go home at 7.30pm even if nothing urgent on? What sort of sweatshop is that?
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wot guido said
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Laz is probably right with respect to HK. Still very old skool out there and people don't have space at home.
In UK the fiss is dead and ain't coming back. Our place hates it and wants everyone in, desperately trying to renormalise it so important non-producers can feel important and useful again.. Not happening. So they will cave eventually and use the cost savings as the excuse to concede on it.
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What strutted said about it’s easier if juniors come by with work and you talk about it.
I recognise what you say about the finance committee m88, but I’m getting myself the chairmanship of the House facilities committee, and we are going to double down hard on office space post Covid, we are talking marbled half with actual marble, busts of past managing partners and great footballers in the alcoves between two storey high claaaical pillars, a reception area you could play a test match in and meeting rooms panelled with the kind of thing you have to burn a patch of Amazon the size of Lancashire to get to.
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Heh @ man see change, man think change is permanent
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I like office bantz, lunches out, commuting is okay if you're outside of rush hour and have a book.
But having a home work space (that I can leave at 5.31) and no rushhour commute is a fooking delight.
I'm certainly gonna be a 3/2 man once this is all done.
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Of course, if there really is going to be less demand for office space in future, which obviously there isn’t, then those who actually want office space, and I’m talking really fooking plush office space here, will find it a buyer’s market. Those who reject such miseries as a home full of work detritus, and no barrier between family and fun on the one handed and the terrible soul destroying grind on the other, will have a whale of a time carving palatial workhavens from pure mahogany and gold while the WFHdronew all be like wahey I can have a w**k at my desk!
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I never used to commute at rush hour tbh, would seldom leave home before 9:30
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i want the option of going in on any day, and a requirement on me and my colleagues to go in at least twice a week.
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I'd be the same in HK if working from home was simply sitting at a small desk in my living. Reason I left London in March was to be able to work from home in comfort rather than perched at a laptop at a dining table.
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Tbh one of the downsides of working from home that I hate most (among many) is that during working hours you’re actually more, rather than less, focused on work.
I fooking hate every single thing about the content and nature of my work, and I don’t really need the money, so compensations such as workplace banteroonies, an architecturally swish office and being near shops that sell nice shoes are really meaningful to me. my actual work is a complete waste of time and I loathe the time I’ve wasted on this shite.
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what area you in??
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Law
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lit? corp? conveyancing?
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The issue is Laz you have, as you've said yourself, completed law. There is nothing more for you do career wise so you're going to be board.
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lit? corp? conveyancing?
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Laz is ideas and blue sky law.
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Law of bloody common sense!
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Does this mean the end of the financial year is with you, you are getting emails every day about WIP and bad debt and you need to bill another $1m in the next 29 days to hit target?
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No
Do I strike you as the kind of person who gets worried about billing targets
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Yes. Because beneath all the bluster you’re ultimately a validation-seeking conformist and as a partner the only real metric of validation is billing and recovery.
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🔥
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I'm less focused at home as there's always something else I can go and do. Sitting in an office I don't have much option other than actually do work.
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" the only real metric of validation is billing and recovery"
HAH, so funny. No. If you even hit those two metrics, management will tell you you have under leveraged. Or over leveraged. Or not done enough BD. Or done too much BD. Or not done enough pastoral care, teaching, know how etc. Or done too much of the same.
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One thing i hated about wfh with mr going out to work every day was that no one valued my time, i was seen as a housewife. Tradesmen, deliveries, boiler breaks down, sort out the oldsters, whatever, oh minkie can do that shes at home.
like i am just there for everyone elses convenience
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Metric of validation with your peer partners. Management will be too busy claiming origination points to make up for their lack of billing.
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Biggie I'm normally in a room of six people and generally like it as you can certainly solve problems quickly with five other minds discussing it rather than having to trawl round the floor asking people individually. Three of the people I share with are part-time and the other two are heavily into BD so often chunks of the day when I've got a big room all to myself to get on with stuff.
Minkie it amazes me at times how much of each day I can waste faffing with household stuff even with two other people home to deal with some of it.
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I was forced to WFH for health reasons 4 years ago. At first I hated it. Found it really difficult to be motivated, missed the chance to see colleagues, missed office lunches. Really missed my commute which was a lovely drive, in my equally nice car, with a stop for my favourite coffee.
every day felt the same, the lack of variation meant time just blended together. Combined with all my health shit (some days it took me three hours just to have a shower and the redress all my surgical wounds) it was hell on earth.
eventually i figured out how to make it work for me.
1. Having a dedicated office space which is seperate from your usual ‘living space’ and on which you can close a door and walk away and not have to look at it.
2. having strict ‘office hours’ .. and dedicated break times throughout the day. Including some time to go outside for a walk. I also sometimes do 5 minutes of chores throughout the day or when I complete a task. Like loading the dishwasher or take out the rubbish. It’s the equivalent of walking to the printer and having a break from my desk.
3. Insisting that others respect my ‘out of office’ hours.
4. When I finish for the day I leave the house and go outside to do something. Even if it’s just ten minutes for the walk I describe above or I take the cats out to the garden. It ‘ends’ the day and acts in the same way as the commute.
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Definitely what Scylla said.
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I am too cheap to turn the heat on so these days when I WFH I am usually shivering in front of the computer.
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I like that you don’t have to pretend to be busy like you do in the office. Very 2019.
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My OH does a lot of WFH and she says the distractions are worse than being in the office - deliverymen, cleaner, etc.
She also mentioned that since she started it I'd got a bit lazy about the house for example not emptying the dishwasher in the morning before work etc. I thought about it and she is right - I think "well I'm going in, she's here all day - she can do it" When we were both in work daily this wouldn't have happened.
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I am so glad I have an office that's physically distinct from my house so I can leave the cleaner to do her thing and just let delivery men leave bits on the doorstep if I'm in the middle of something.
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