[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

I'd like to expand on this aspect a bit, because I've seen you bring it up several times since you started this thread.

Dear Chetan Rao,



One of the best posts on this thread.

Thank you my friend for bringing in the reality aspect as well as the fact that there is a whole segment of workers out there equally affected by WFO, WFH, commutes, inflation etc who simply do not have the vast choices and flexibility that many writers on this thread do. And yet the latter don't think twice before indulging in puerile rants that smack of entitlement or statements that indicate a lack of dignity of labour. Once again thank you for this post. Maybe now we can turn this thread into a more useful constructive discussion instead of being merely a venting platform by some of the most well paid engineers in this land.

Warm regards
V.Narayan

[DudeWithaFiat]

Originally Posted by chanz2015

It all depends on Work culture of each firm. You are assessing my routines based on the work culture you are familiar with.

Exactly. I've seen this assumption in majority of replies on this thread and also on the 'The plight of IT professionals in their 40s' thread that all the IT companies share similar work culture. The company culture among service companies (WITCH) may be similar, but for product companies, it varies hugely from company to company. In the last 10 years, I worked with 2 product companies, and it was very flexible at both the companies. Unless there is a critical task on the line, it was common for folks to take a break (even before the WFH started) if you have to complete personal matters (like going to a bank). It also depends on which team you are in. For example, support teams who interact directly with customers, never had this luxury.

So, things did not change much when we started WFH from March 2020. I remember in one of our weekly team meetings, my manager (a Serb working out of our London office) attended the meeting sitting in his car (video on) because he was waiting for his pregnant wife to complete her doctor appointment.

Also, our new neighbor who works in a major service company was surprised to hear that we keep our meetings short, and it was okay to accept or reject meeting requests if it is out of our working hours.

[Nitish.arnold]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

The IT office isn't just the swanky floors full of howling well-paid prima donnas. There's an entire world down in the dark basement, with limited choices, prospects and no practical voice or say in the matter. They were never part of the WFH conversation, they were still brought in during COVID as essential staff or simply laid off as unnecessary expense.

As I started my career in this very dark basement, I can really connect to it. <fortunately saved by my mentor in just a month or so>

This line really hits it hard, out of the park!

[manchandap]

Thanks V.Narayan Sir for sharing your perspective as an employer and entrepreneur.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

This is a sanguine view of the employee. This does not reflect the view of the employer regardless of B.S. the likes of TCS tried putting out in 2020. On the whole productivity fell, security compromises sky rocketed, fraud by employees, your very own colleagues, would surprise you and employers tolerated WFH because of the global crises of the pandemic and not because it was a panacea of the way forward. Some like TCS did the industry a disfavour by newspaper headlines that were divorced from reality.

Will focus on the 'fraud' thing by employees. I won't deny or pretend to deny that people didn't misuse the WFH. There were news about employees getting fired for moonlighting. To me, this was a very extreme and serious case.

There would be other not-so-serious scenarios where employees shirked work by using alibi like power cuts (A father boosted how his WFH son uses alibi to take a break or run some personal errands. The 'son' is in in non IT field). Sometimes, these things boil down to the work culture of the organization. E.g. If I need a break or need to run an errand, I just have to drop an email to my stakeholders about my unavailability and no questions asked. So, we were transparent about our 'away times'.

Now, any privilege or benefit or policy has a potential of being misused. There will be a percentage of people who will misuse, bring bad name to the policy/privilege and cause a larger harm. E.g. it's an open secret how LTA/LTC policy is misused or what type of medical bills would be submitted to save tax.

Misuse is not the critical part but how do we prevent the misuse is critical. However, our Indian bureaucratic mindset will find the easiest way to counter misuse i.e. scrap the policy/privilege/benefit. Few noteworthy instances:

• A stampede three decades ago at a monument resulted in closure rather than implementing crowd control measure. This is in contrast with how things are handled at London's Monument To Great Fire. Both are tall structures with narrow stair case
• We cannot segregate and manage waste, so we will ban single use plastic
• We cannot enforce the opacity or transparency of sun films in vehicles, so we will ban the sun film

Similarly, we want to ban WFH just because few employees misuse it. The misuse can be easily eliminated by leveraging processes and technology.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

For employees who yell now about commute time my only comment is - you knew of the commute before you took the job, you took it for whatever reason {despite usually a choice} so please own your decision.

I am one of those employees who knew that I will have to commute 60-70 KMs a day when I bought a house couple of decades back. There are many people like me across all industry verticals and not just in IT.

However, as the business leaders say that Change is the only Constant. E.g. With recession, mergers and acquisitions the business scenarios and priorities change. Employees are told to move out. They are supposed to adjust to the changes in their role/profiles and org structures.


Similarly, the employers and businesses need to embrace the WFH model as a change in working model rather than resist it.

Originally Posted by Jaguar

Thanks for explaining your POV. As you said it is the culture in Berlin and probably the EU rather than the firm's culture. And that is why it works for you.

I have first-hand experience with only India and the US. And a regular 2-hour lunch break would not be considered normal in either of these places. Being in the IT industry, some might still pull this off once in a while but what about the majority?

You reminded me of a discussion that I had during a course of interview long time back. I was being interviewed by a gentleman in a senior position who had recently returned to India after a long overseas stint.

He asked me to share my thoughts about the work culture. I told him look at a daily routine of employees in a typical IT company:

• People arrive around 9 AM,
• check their mails, both office and personal. The interview happened in pre-social media era
• wait for their buddies to arrive
• morning tea and breakfast break
• It's already 10-11 AM by this time
• Some work and/or meetings
• By 12:30 preparations for lunch start
• Back at desk by 1:30 - 2 after lunch and walk
• Some work and/or meetings
• Return Home: No fixed time, primarily depends on meetings with overseas stakeholders

and he was laughing in splits.

[airguitar]

For Clint Eastwood's sake, if you have been working from home for the last few years, plugged into those black or white thingamagics into your ears for your office calls or "focus music", please go have a hearing test done for yourselves. Don't be shocked if the result turns out nasty ( I hope not ).

It's atrocious how earphones and headphones of all shapes and sizes and colors and technologies have flooded people's lives and taken over it; and people using it in an unlimited way as if there is no tomorrow. A friend recently got his hearing test done and it was diagnosed for NIHL (Noised Induced Hearing Loss) at the frequency of human speech. Reason: 9 hours of office calls everyday on the earphones. Apparently, the doctor also told him that such cases have gone up quite a bit during and after covid.

I have always used a loudspeaker and a good mic and have hated plugging things into my ear.

[Vishal.R]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

On the whole productivity fell, security compromises sky rocketed, fraud by employees, your very own colleagues

Would like to understand more about above points.

Even Hybrid mode won't help to solve above issues, only way is FULL work from office without ANY access to systems outside, and there are organizations which work with credit card numbers, credit history, financial transactions, healthcare data, financial data of companies (which can affect stock markets) etc.
For such environment, even within office of offshore service provider or even within organization's own office, normally there is a separate section where access is based on "need to perform duties" and with strict restrictions like no smartphones / devices allowed etc.

If an organization claims that fraud happened due to WFH, I would question competency of their security risk assessment team, as they should have either flagged risk and have taken some preventive steps or have at least raised red flags about WFH before allowing it, and organization could have taken permission to work from office.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by airguitar

Reason: 9 hours of office calls everyday on the earphones. Apparently, the doctor also told him that such cases have gone up quite a bit during and after covid.

I have always used a loudspeaker and a good mic and have hated plugging things into my ear.

For the same reason, I have always avoided headphones of any shape/type for longer durations (30 mins or more) and prefer Speakers. However, speakers are not possible at work and hence have to live with Headphones there.

Basic good quality speakers are available for prices way cheaper than earphones in many cases and one such set is what I use at home for my setup.

Same applies for the eyes, and hence prefer not looking at screen for long durations. However, that goes for a toss when watching a movie on my laptop

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by airguitar

For Clint Eastwood's sake, if you have been working from home for the last few years, plugged into those black or white thingamagics into your ears for your office calls or "focus music", please go have a hearing test done for yourselves. Don't be shocked if the result turns out nasty ( I hope not ).

I always use a monitor with speakers and the webcam microphone. The only time I use the BT earphone is during the daily walking around my apartment building. I don't like to use headphones any other time.

[Everlearner]

This is a very big issue that gets ignored. Many people have the habit of having earphones plugged in for most of the day which is very harmful.

Any recommendations for a good speaker and mic combo with good voice clarity suitable for office calls?

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by sunilch

However, speakers are not possible at work and hence have to live with Headphones there.

Yes, one ends up using headphones more when in the office rather than at home. Another post-covid trend I am observing is people attending meetings from their desks with headphones on instead of going to a meeting room, even when all the required folks are on the same floor.

[somspaple]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

Yes, one ends up using headphones more when in the office rather than at home. Another post-covid trend I am observing is people attending meetings from their desks with headphones on instead of going to a meeting room, even when all the required folks are on the same floor.

Another observation is that people in general have forgotten how to take calls at desk - they speak as if the whole office floor is their audience.

On the other hand CEOs are really pissed that employees are reluctant to come into office and they are aware of all the points that members are posing on this thread. Hence we are seeing this kind of diktat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=untSqXukuXM&t=30s

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by Everlearner

This is a very big issue that gets ignored. Many people have the habit of having earphones plugged in for most of the day which is very harmful.

Any recommendations for a good speaker and mic combo with good voice clarity suitable for office calls?

There are several options for this. I use one called Platronics Calisto. Been using it for around 3 years now. Works very well. Only downside is that even at lowest volume the speaker is fairly loud.

https://amzn.eu/d/7OwyfEV

[am1m]

I've found that the default laptop speakers and in-built mic are more than sufficient for regular meetings and calls. I alternate between a Thinkpad and a Mac, both seem to be good enough for audio quality. Find I use headphones a lot less at home, than I used to at the office.

Another tip, if your laptop camera has one of those physical sliders to obstruct the lens, do use it and get in to the habit of opening it for video calls and closing it as soon as the call ends. A couple of times, a new meeting app I was using has started the camera by default when the meeting started. Also helpful in case some app gains control of the camera.

[DigitalOne]

Google gets serious on WFO 3 days a week.

Source: Washington Post

For over a year, Google has asked workers to come in three days a week, luring them with free food and other perks. But now, the company is getting serious. On Wednesday, the company told workers that they must comply with the three-day requirement or their nonattendance could show up on their performance reviews...

Emphasis mine below. I wonder if this is the ulterior motivation behind all such moves?

The new message from management, that not coming in could be noted on a person’s performance review, was seen as the most aggressive attempt yet to get people to come into an office, said one Google employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. It could lead to many more workers quitting or being fired, adding to the thousands Google laid off in January, they said.

[cataclysm]

This video popped up in my feed today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrsRvozsUQ8

The guy makes some really good points (a lot that has been discussed in this thread):

1. A lot of companies are not doing great right now, so forcing people to come back to the office ensures some of them will quit and save the company the hassle of laying off folks.

2. Exposure to real estate, so it makes sense for companies to get people back to the office. Because if you are already paying for the building, might has well have people work from the office.

3. Empowered managers, whose only contribution is micro-managing people