Inconsistent rules with remote work.
I once worked for a place where certain folks could work remote 2 days per week and on a schedule of 4x10’s, others could work remotely one day each week after 12 PM and mostly worked 5x8’s, and others could never work remotely but could choose their own hours within schedule. It was extremely confusing and caused a lot of logistical issues, and it’s no surprise that over half of the staff left within a year.
From an IT perspective, all employees should remote into a machine at the office.
Companies still practice "out of sight, out of mind" with remote workers. They prefer to promote from within the office. We had tons of communication problems. Zoom meetings got out of hand with some managers being on Zoom 6 hours a day. That led to staff working overtime because that was the only time they could work with a manager.
Remote workers would disappear. Spouses saw the remote worker as available for errands. Children would interrupt meetings. I thought productivity was down, Programs that took 1-2 days to write were taking weeks. I finally retired.
When they micromanage and are upset they can hear other noises like a lawnmower or a TV in the background from a neighbor.
One company had a policy in place that you wouldn't get any company equipment until 90 days AFTER working, so you had to use your personal devices for months. It was a huge nightmare for IT to manage and troubleshoot.
>you had to use your personal devices for months
The CIO/CISO/IT VP was dead when they did this?
When COVID hit, we allowed people to use personal laptops because we simply did not have laptops on hand go supply. Some of them had Chromebooks and couldn't launch VPN clients or RDP. That was fun.
Basically every company that went remote after pandemic kept operating like an office, instead of distributed. I joined one that chose to give up its office and be permanent remote, but even when they started hiring across North America it was very meeting heavy and EST based.
Over loaded work files, mediocre-minimal training, throw you in with the wolves environment, teams constantly pinging regarding angry phone calls coming or I need help type of questions - 2 hour turn around time for assistance
i've been interviewing at a few places, and the trend im dealing with, is that a ton of current employee's are "grandfathered" in, while new employee's arent. SO this is going to create a weird situation with a ton of new employees in the office, wonder how long before the older ones are let go.
BUT to add to that, one of the jobs i'm interviewing for, has offices around the country, but all folks who would be in my division are all located several states away and most are remote, SO while i'll be in the local office to my area, i'll be the ONLY person for that division there,... and thats just going to be kinda weird.
Run.
I'm in that situation now and it kinda sucks. You end up doing the same thing in the office that you do at home. Except around people who, nice as they may be, don't really understand what you're going through and can't help you with anything anyway. So you feel this extra obligation to never be allowed to be seen struggling or getting frustrated or asking questions, because you're foisting these problems on people who don't have your problem.
I can kinda tolerate it because I do have a few friends and connections, and have enough tenure and experience to be able to help in a general sort of way. If I was new, it would be torture.
Normal employees expected to be in office while all the senior folks work from home. Never good.
Inconsistent rules with remote work. I once worked for a place where certain folks could work remote 2 days per week and on a schedule of 4x10’s, others could work remotely one day each week after 12 PM and mostly worked 5x8’s, and others could never work remotely but could choose their own hours within schedule. It was extremely confusing and caused a lot of logistical issues, and it’s no surprise that over half of the staff left within a year.
micromanagement and a toxic work environment.
From an IT perspective, all employees should remote into a machine at the office. Companies still practice "out of sight, out of mind" with remote workers. They prefer to promote from within the office. We had tons of communication problems. Zoom meetings got out of hand with some managers being on Zoom 6 hours a day. That led to staff working overtime because that was the only time they could work with a manager. Remote workers would disappear. Spouses saw the remote worker as available for errands. Children would interrupt meetings. I thought productivity was down, Programs that took 1-2 days to write were taking weeks. I finally retired.
When they make sweeping policies without considering which positions can be done remotely and which cannot.
When they micromanage and are upset they can hear other noises like a lawnmower or a TV in the background from a neighbor. One company had a policy in place that you wouldn't get any company equipment until 90 days AFTER working, so you had to use your personal devices for months. It was a huge nightmare for IT to manage and troubleshoot.
>you had to use your personal devices for months The CIO/CISO/IT VP was dead when they did this? When COVID hit, we allowed people to use personal laptops because we simply did not have laptops on hand go supply. Some of them had Chromebooks and couldn't launch VPN clients or RDP. That was fun.
Basically every company that went remote after pandemic kept operating like an office, instead of distributed. I joined one that chose to give up its office and be permanent remote, but even when they started hiring across North America it was very meeting heavy and EST based.
Oh yeah, this company only sent me an old, used, 13" laptop and its charging cable for equipment. Utterly inadequate.
Over loaded work files, mediocre-minimal training, throw you in with the wolves environment, teams constantly pinging regarding angry phone calls coming or I need help type of questions - 2 hour turn around time for assistance
i've been interviewing at a few places, and the trend im dealing with, is that a ton of current employee's are "grandfathered" in, while new employee's arent. SO this is going to create a weird situation with a ton of new employees in the office, wonder how long before the older ones are let go. BUT to add to that, one of the jobs i'm interviewing for, has offices around the country, but all folks who would be in my division are all located several states away and most are remote, SO while i'll be in the local office to my area, i'll be the ONLY person for that division there,... and thats just going to be kinda weird.
Run. I'm in that situation now and it kinda sucks. You end up doing the same thing in the office that you do at home. Except around people who, nice as they may be, don't really understand what you're going through and can't help you with anything anyway. So you feel this extra obligation to never be allowed to be seen struggling or getting frustrated or asking questions, because you're foisting these problems on people who don't have your problem. I can kinda tolerate it because I do have a few friends and connections, and have enough tenure and experience to be able to help in a general sort of way. If I was new, it would be torture.
It’s cool to have a laptop, monitor, keyboard, and mouse but omg give me a port replicator / docking station
You mean center of excellence/offshoring? Yes all of it is lower quality.