For background on this topic without getting too specific, I’m an engineer and I typically work in an office. I’m younger and haven’t been in the work force for long but working in office spaces is driving me insane.
Now I understand that work isn’t supposed to be super fun, but I’d like to at least be able to tolerate it. So far I’ve spent a couple years in offices and it’s been miserable. I enjoy what I do as far as engineering. I like the topics, I like the productive parts of what I do. But I cannot stand office spaces. They’re uncomfortable and depressing environments for me.
I feel like spending time working from home would be ideal, but I’d like to hear people’s thoughts and if anyone else has had this experience. Is it something you just get used to?
Things I like about working in an office:
Things that sucked:
I’ve been remote working since Covid first landed. I will happily trade all the things I liked about working in an office to never have to deal with the parts I don’t like. If I can help it, I’ll always choose remote work. I get so much done here at home in both work and home stuff. Oh I forgot to do laundry over the weekend, no biggie. Oh I need to marinate something, boom 10 minute break. Finished all my planned work for the day? Going to knock off early and go play a game or watch a show.
Remote work has transformed my life and I’ll never go back to the office.
It’s interesting because I don’t mind some of those things. My commutes haven’t been bad, they’re 30 minutes out of my day and I enjoy the drive time. The small talk is minimal. And with noise I just put in earbuds.
My problem is more the uncomfy chair and desk setup, the lighting, the AC temp, just the general environment is not a productive one for me. Those things inhibit my work. Even just using the bathroom and having to tuck my shirt back in so I can walk back to my desk annoys me.
In most of my engineering jobs, we’ve had an allowance for office supplies, especially ergonomic improvements. I’ve seen people spend it on keyboards (usually an ergodox!) and mice, monitor arms, even entirely new standing desks. I also believe that some places have legal requirements for employers to provide ergonomic equipment to employees if requested. Maybe you could inquire about something like that?
But also, I’m 100% on team work from home. I don’t plan to ever go back to the office.
I hear ya on this. I think they’d help my experience but probably wouldn’t solve most of my main gripes. I’ll still check in on it though, thanks!
The bathroom was pretty bad at our old building. We had 4 floors with a couple hundred people on each floor, but the men’s room was just 2 urinals and 2 stalls for each floor. So if you needed that stall you often ended up having to go to multiple floors to find a bathroom stall that wasn’t already occupied.
The lack of privacy in general too. We had short cubicles with your monitors facing outward so anyone could see what you were looking at at any given time. If I wanted to take a 10 minute break to look at some reddit (beehaw now) I’d often feel like I’m going to get caught and spoken to.
I feel the same. My back is always to the open room and it gives me anxiety about taking short breaks
Think of the chair as an investment if you pay for it out of pocket. I also work for an engineering firm in an office environment and complained about the chairs for years. The safety guy in charge of ergonomic assessments would end up getting me a replacement chair that was identical to my previous chair so I finally gave up on trying that route. I eventually went to a commercial showroom and found a chair that I liked (was a $1200 chair with a 10 year warranty). I followed my company’s written policy to get all of the approvals to bring in outside equipment (P&O, my supervisor and the safety guy). They all said I was being ridiculous, but the chair was non-refundable so I wanted to make sure I didn’t get told no after the fact. I purchased my chair in 2019 and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. When everything shifted to home in 2020, I was one of the few people from my company that had proper office seating at my home office. A good chair that breathes (or doesn’t) can also help with the A/C issues. My logical conclusion was $1200 on a chair is an investment in my health. My back feels better at the end of the day. I don’t spend money on regular chiropractor visits. Assuming it lasts for at least 10 years since the warranty is 10 years, it’s only $120/year.
I agree with pretty much everything here.
My employer is a regional organization, so all our meetings were via Zoom/WebEx/whatever before COVID. Our pivot to remote work was trivial - those that could already had the tools at their disposal (and were likely using them already), those that couldn’t were healthcare providers and had a whole different experience anyway.
I do end up going in once in a while, because it’s only 10 minutes away from home and I already have to drive kids past the office anyway. But once my younger child is in school this fall, I’m not sure how things will change. I won’t have a need to get up early every day, so I might go in less, and possibly work earlier hours.
I’m very surprised that we allowed remote work to continue, but we actually embraced it and made it the standard. We downsized our office space (let the lease expire), and remodeled the space we kept. It’s been good, though it has exposed a lot of issues with our onboarding process. But that’s nothing we can’t work through.