My biggest problem is hybrid meetings. A roomful of people and a bunch of remotes makes them a mess.
Oh, yes. That’s awful. But then most large participatory meets are awful, just because its hard to engage that many people for any extended period of time. Unless you’re just doing a quick presentation, large meetings almost always feel like a waste of time.
For me remote is great. I keep a lot of wasted time stopped because I force documentation as a requirement.
Getting documentation out of my coworkers is like pulling teeth. Everyone does things their own way and its almost never recorded in a central (much less organized) repository. One of my tasks over the last year has been about changing that, but even just getting a central Sharepoint repository that lots of people can access has been difficult.
Having a crowd of people in the office I can bother physically has been - in my experience - much more efficient than firing off emails or Teams notices that can be easily ignored.
Edit. I wanted to add that you make a good point inadvertently about local businesses downtown. A lot of them were hurting without the foot traffic so that’s a positive.
I’ve worked in offices for a while, and there’s definitely a difference between the “run out for a Subway sandwich then get back to work ASAP” and “meander down to the Tonkotsu ramen spot and chat with the owner while you enjoy some mid-day leisure time”. If you’re living the former, I get why WFH is orders of magnitude better. If you’re enjoying the latter, it feels like you’re being robbed if you can’t experience the nicer parts of the city that you’re ostensibly earning enough money to live in.
Why even have a good job in a nice city if you can’t go out and do the things that these cities are known for?
Oh, yes. That’s awful. But then most large participatory meets are awful, just because its hard to engage that many people for any extended period of time. Unless you’re just doing a quick presentation, large meetings almost always feel like a waste of time.
Getting documentation out of my coworkers is like pulling teeth. Everyone does things their own way and its almost never recorded in a central (much less organized) repository. One of my tasks over the last year has been about changing that, but even just getting a central Sharepoint repository that lots of people can access has been difficult.
Having a crowd of people in the office I can bother physically has been - in my experience - much more efficient than firing off emails or Teams notices that can be easily ignored.
I’ve worked in offices for a while, and there’s definitely a difference between the “run out for a Subway sandwich then get back to work ASAP” and “meander down to the Tonkotsu ramen spot and chat with the owner while you enjoy some mid-day leisure time”. If you’re living the former, I get why WFH is orders of magnitude better. If you’re enjoying the latter, it feels like you’re being robbed if you can’t experience the nicer parts of the city that you’re ostensibly earning enough money to live in.
Why even have a good job in a nice city if you can’t go out and do the things that these cities are known for?