this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
2 points (100.0% liked)

AskBeehaw

2003 readers
1 users here now

An open-ended community for asking and answering various questions! Permissive of asks, AMAs, and OOTLs (out-of-the-loop) alike.

In the absence of flairs, questions requesting more thought-out answers can be marked by putting [SERIOUS] in the title.

Subcommunity of Chat

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
thrawn21@beehaw.org
UngodlyAudrey@beehaw.org
2
How to stop hating work? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by LimitedBrain@beehaw.org to c/askbeehaw@beehaw.org
9 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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?

top 9 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

A few thoughts:

  • Look for a remote job?
  • This one seems silly, but... care less about whether you are productive and focus on whether you are happy at work
  • Have a discussion with your manager about how to mitigate the annoyances
  • Also have a discussion with your manager about how to do more of the stuff you like
  • Set stronger boundaries - a sign which says please do not disturb me when headphones are on for example may help to reduce small talk, if that's something you don't desire, and allows you to start/stop focus time. Talking with your coworkers about how best to interact with you like telling them that you prefer conversations start with an email thread, or a message on slack/teams/etc.
[–] ExoMonk@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Things I like about working in an office:

  • I liked my coworkers
  • I liked going for random breaks to go walk somewhere or have lunch and get away from the desk

Things that sucked:

  • Constant noise and distractions
  • Small talk with people that I just don't want to spend the mental energy talking to
  • 1.5 hours worth of commute time that just eats away at my day

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.

[–] LimitedBrain@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ExoMonk@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] LimitedBrain@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I feel the same. My back is always to the open room and it gives me anxiety about taking short breaks

[–] apfoster10@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I have been 100% virtual since COVID. I love not commuting but it can be very isolating. At this point I am fairly certain I may not ever work in an office again. Alot of it has to do with the people you work with. I had one job where the entire team of 13 people turned over within a year. I was the first one in on the "new team" so to speak. Being that we were all learning on the job together, and we were a unique group of humble and hard working people, we developed a bond very quickly and hung out regularly on weekends. It was like going to work with your friends everyday, and no matter how hard things got, we found a way to get through it. Best job I ever had and I had to commute an hour each way for it.

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Retire. I know flippant. Seriously though anything you do over 40 hours a week outside of sleeping is not going to be fun. Also 90% are the same in the sense that you spend 50% or more of your time not doing the particular stuff you like but instead going to meetings, doing required training, fitting your stuff into required methodology. Tracking and documenting things. WFH does help a lot. I take a one hour lunch pretty much every day and walk my dog along with prep and eat a nice meal. I find when I have a block of time its much easier to completely focus on my work compared to in office. Then of course you also don't have the annoying commute. That really makes a difference in quality of life while working.

[–] LimitedBrain@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not sure how this came across in the post but I’m not talking about being lazy. I’ve actually enjoyed many parts of my job even with the mundane meetings and documentation. I don’t enjoy the massive time wasting involved in most offices.

I prefer to be busy. What I don’t enjoy is the discomfort, poor lighting, bad layout, etc. Its like modern managers think that handing out standing desks like candy is going to make offices preferable to literally anything else.

And yes, I can manage some of this by bringing my own keyboard and getting a better chair. But realistically, every office culture I’ve encountered so far just sucks the soul out of me. A few months in and I’ll just be watching the time begging for lunch to come. I’ll go home and have two hours of daylight left to myself.

It seems like WFH is the option. I just don’t get how anyone does this without being absolutely miserable.

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Im not talking about being lazy either but I will tell you that wfh does not prevent the massive time wasting. unfortunately. still I rather eat what I have at home and walk my dog on lunch than run out to a fast food place and love not having the commute. then add using your own bathroom and petting my dog whenever I want and it is a whole lot better to be wfh.