Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
Interesting discussion this week, I’m very much with the panel, when it comes to robots, why do they have to look human? Being the most efficient form for the job at hand makes much more sense than using a form that is descended from tree dwellers and is awkward on flat surfaces…
Regarding electric vehicles, I’ll be keeping my current diesel until it dies. I get around 4L/100KM average and down to 3L on a good run (around 60-78mpg US) and the mileage I currently drive, it would take around 25 years for a new electric vehicle to break even financially, not to talk about the environmental costs of scrapping a working vehicle & the resources needed to build the new one…
I currently ride my bike to work every day (I drove 3 times last year and 4 times this year, mainly due to illness or having to go directly to an appointment after work that was further away) and use the car mainly for shopping at the weekend or the odd trip to visit family and friends on the weekend, when it is too far to ride.
I’m hoping, by the time the 10 year old car dies, I won’t need a new one. We live about 2 minutes walk from the railway station, there are regular bus services and we are 1 minute from the centre of town, so we can pretty much get anywhere without the car, I only drive to the supermarket, because it is one town over, but the butcher’s counter is much better than the supermarkets in our town. When it dies, the plan is to use a hire car for the odd journey we need a car for (half a dozen times a year).
Our town also has a couple of communal electric vehicle that you can rent per app, that might be another option.
The WFH vs office work discussion is great. At my current job, they sent everyone home for the duration of the pandemic. Which, kudos to them; I’ve worked at places where they would have been like “F*** your health, get in the office now” and then kicked your body aside and when you died of COVID at your desk.
However, it became apparent that most people in our company could work remotely. When the restrictions were lifted, management started asking that people come in two and then three days a week. Partly because they are buying into the whole “Collaboration is mandatory” thing, and partly because they signed a six year lease in the middle of lockdown and need to justify having the space.
Here’s the kicker, though: in my department of eight people, four are remote. The closest person to the office of that four is about 250 miles away. Our boss is in FL and one of my coworkers is MN. And we’re getting the job done.
What’s frustrating is that the company is basically forcing a distance penalty on those of who live near the office. We’re not any more productive, but management needs to make themselves fee better about the office. I will acknowledge at this point that I’m really close to the office and it’s not a real imposition, but for some of my other coworkers, it’s taking them nearly an hour to get here.
It’s nuts, too, because a lot of the empty seats around my cubicle are that way because they either empty when I got there or they laid off people and didn’t replace them. Hell, one person actually died and they haven’t replaced them. So a lot of the whole “You need to collaborate to be a good worker” stuff really rings hollow.
Another frustration is how most of the C-Suite is working from home full time. Which, yeah, they’re the bosses, blah blah blah, but still is not exactly a stellar lead-by-example move.
At the end of the day, though, if that’s what they want, I can always quit, I guess. Three days in the office is still less than five. Still, it’s kinda fascinating to watch a company be in utter denial about how the old way of congregating in an office is slowly becoming a thing of the past.
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At my current job, they sent everyone home for the duration of the pandemic.
When the restrictions were lifted, management started asking that people come in two and then three days a week.
Given that the pandemic is ongoing, it seems to me like they didn’t send everyone home for the duration…
I think the quoted poster is using the common thinking espoused by the WHO ( Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic ), which is referring to the ending of the declaration of a health emergency:
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Given the reference to restrictions being lifted being the point at which they asked people to return to the office, and I don’t think many countries had any restrictions in May 2023, I’m not convinced by that either. But also, I feel it’s important to remember we’re still in a pandemic of a highly transmissible and dangerous virus that’s continuing to give people long-term disabilities, and that’s my largest reason for refusing to go back to an office, especially one that’s not had any kind of mitigations put in place.
Thank you for getting the bigger picture and not being super pedantic, unlike other commenters.
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I would argue that it’s not being super pedantic to point out we’re still in a pandemic. Normalising thinking about it being in the past is damaging and makes things that much harder for those who are now shut out of areas of society because people think of it in the past tense and don’t mitigate, measure, or test.
I was trying to make a point about how companies are tripping over themselves to get people back in the office, despite the fact many of these jobs can be done remotely.
The “Well, ACSHULLY…” part about the pandemic, while not wrong, wasn’t what I was focusing on.
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And I wasn’t taking away from the rest of your post, I was making a singular point that’s important to me
I work for a manufacturing company and we have been back on site for 2 years now. Management said it wasn’t fair to the production workers, who had to carry on working on site during the pandemic, when the office staff had been sent home, if those office workers could stay in home office. (We produced chemicals needed for shampoo, paper production and disinfectant.)
We came back to the office for morale reasons, the production workers felt it was unfair that the office workers “were lazing around all day watching Netflix”, whilst they were required to do their normal work.
They are slowly opening up work from home again, office employees can work 1 day a week (maximum 2 days a month) at home in “mobile office”, managers can do the same, but up to 4 times a month.
Important is the distinction between mobile office and home office. For “home office”, the company is legally required to do a health and safety check of the home and provide desks, desk chairs, monitors, docking stations, keyboards and mice etc. in mobile office that is not the case. For 2 days a month, it isn’t worth the investment to make a home office for each employee.