One of the managers started to really push the come back to the office. He even made some arrangements for our project to have a separate place in the building where only people who work for this particular project can sit. We have about 20 people working for the same client. Sound like a good idea, doesn't it?
Nope. We're all scattered over multiple teams where most of the people in that team are working directly for the client. A client that is stationed in a completely different country. Out of all the people the manager wants to see in the office only one person is someone I directly work with. The rest of the people from my team I will most likely never see in person, since they live abroad.
So, the value proposition for coming to the office is something like:
1) Lose an hour of sleep
2) Waste nearly two hours trying to commute using public transportation OR half of my daily wage by using taxi/Uber to save an hour of commute time
3) Sit in the open space office for 8 hours having no privacy whatsoever and being distracted by people who I do not even work with
4) Do all my work with a team who is stationed in an another country anyway, so I need to constantly use MS Teams or something similar to communicate
5) Spend significantly more on food (can't really cook for myself in the office) or have to go through the mess of packaging my own food (and never really have it as fresh as I want)
If I agree to come to the office on the regular I will do the same stuff I do at home, except I will spend more of my own time and money to do so. And all of that for what, some random conversations over coffee? Spending time with people I am not sure I want to be friends with? Pretending I will collaborate with that one other person more effectively? It makes no sense.
If they want me in the office they better give me a really good reason to do so. Reimbursement of time and money lost commuting would be a good start.
Nope. We're all scattered over multiple teams where most of the people in that team are working directly for the client. A client that is stationed in a completely different country. Out of all the people the manager wants to see in the office only one person is someone I directly work with. The rest of the people from my team I will most likely never see in person, since they live abroad.
So, the value proposition for coming to the office is something like:
1) Lose an hour of sleep
2) Waste nearly two hours trying to commute using public transportation OR half of my daily wage by using taxi/Uber to save an hour of commute time
3) Sit in the open space office for 8 hours having no privacy whatsoever and being distracted by people who I do not even work with
4) Do all my work with a team who is stationed in an another country anyway, so I need to constantly use MS Teams or something similar to communicate
5) Spend significantly more on food (can't really cook for myself in the office) or have to go through the mess of packaging my own food (and never really have it as fresh as I want)
If I agree to come to the office on the regular I will do the same stuff I do at home, except I will spend more of my own time and money to do so. And all of that for what, some random conversations over coffee? Spending time with people I am not sure I want to be friends with? Pretending I will collaborate with that one other person more effectively? It makes no sense.
If they want me in the office they better give me a really good reason to do so. Reimbursement of time and money lost commuting would be a good start.